


Patterns

by the_genderman



Series: Various collected A/B/O fics, potentially all unrelated to each other [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta Sam Wilson, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, No Explicit Sexual Content, Omega Steve Rogers, Polyamory, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, taking into account the, trying not to be squicky about the a/b/o
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-27 17:12:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 27,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_genderman/pseuds/the_genderman
Summary: “C’mon Steve,” Bucky said quietly. “You know I can’t. I won’t take advantage of you. You’ll agree with me tomorrow when you’re back to yourself and don’t feel so desperate anymore. If I sleep with you now, you’ll always resent it a little, I know you will."Looking through the Captain America movies with an a/b/o lens and eventual SamSteveBucky.





	1. Chapter 1

Bucky peeked into the classroom, looking for Steve. He wasn’t outside where he was supposed to be, which meant one of two things. Either he was in the principal’s office for a talking-to, or he was in the nurse’s office again.

“Looking for Rogers?” one of the boys leaving the classroom asked.

“Yeah, you seen him?” Bucky asked.

“Where else do you think he’d be?” the boy scoffed. “He got sent to the nurse’s office. He didn’t look so good, probably got ‘flu. We’re all gonna get quarantined, and just in time for summer, just you watch.”

“Of course. Shoulda checked there first,” Bucky mumbled. He turned and walked down the hallway.

\--------

The school nurse led Bucky to one of the isolation rooms.

“He came down an hour and a half ago. We tried to get hold of his mother, but when we called the hospital, they said she was unavailable and that she probably wouldn’t be able to leave before the end of her scheduled shift, anyway. Are you sure you’ll be ok?” the nurse asked. “You two have always been very close; will you need a beta to walk home with you?

“Need a beta to walk home with us? What do you… oh!” Bucky said, suddenly understanding. “Oh, yeah, I should be fine. I can handle anything he does.” The nurse gave him a tired look, but opened the door.

The scent wasn’t the strongest he’d ever smelled, but for someone as small as Steve, it was a lot. Steve had finally presented. Omega. His first heat. Steve was lying curled up on the narrow bed, whimpering quietly and rubbing himself through his pants. 

“Hey, Stevie. How are you?” Bucky asked gently.

At the sound of his name, Steve looked up. The scent intensified, surprising Bucky and almost causing him to stumble. Was Steve responding to _him_ or was this just a reflexive thing, the presence of an alpha? 

“School day’s over, Stevie. C’mon, let’s go home,” Bucky said, holding out his hand.

“You taking me home?” Steve grinned. He sat up, dangling his feet off the side of the bed.

“Not like _that_ ,” Bucky laughed. “All I’m gonna do is get you back to your apartment, make sure you get something to eat, tuck you into bed to rest, then wait until your ma gets home. Wait’ll she finds out you finally presented.”

Steve hopped down from the bed, picked up his bag, and pressed himself against Bucky’s side. Bucky threw an arm around Steve’s shoulder.

“I know you know this,” the nurse said, “but I feel obliged to remind you that he’s been in full heat for at least an hour and a half. He’s past the point of being able to give proper consent. I know it’s not the most pleasant experience to go through a heat solo and he’ll probably try to ask you to help him out, but I don’t want to hear about you taking advantage of him in this state. If you asked him for anything right now, he’d say yes in a heartbeat.”

“Yes, ma’am. Or, no ma’am? I would never do anything to hurt Steve,” Bucky said, raising his right hand as if giving an oath. “You have my word.”

“Alright now, you get him home safe.”

\----------------------------------

Almost there. Almost there. Bucky kept repeating the phrase to himself as he guided Steve down the street. Steve had gotten increasingly handsy as they neared the apartment, even going so far as to attempt to unbutton Bucky’s pants. Bucky had peremptorily swatted his hands away. Steve sulked for a couple minutes, but then reached around and squeezed Bucky’s ass. 

“But I _want_ this, Buck,” Steve pouted.

“Do _you_ want this or do your _hormones_ want this?” Bucky asked.

“Why can’t it be both?” Steve argued. “ _You_ want this, I know you do.”

Bucky pursed his lips. Yes, he _did_ want this. But it wouldn’t be fair to Steve. When he had presented as alpha, he had gotten the full sit-down talk from his parents on How to Treat Your Omega Right and the promise that if they ever found out that he had ignored it, then his dad would tan his hide _good_. You had to get consent _before_ the full heat came on, before the hormones got too strong. If an omega’s heat was like an alpha’s rut, then Steve had his sympathy going it alone. 

“Maybe next time, Steve,” Bucky said, trying hard to ignore Steve’s scent. He’d heard rumor that omegas could manipulate the scent of their heat to smell more attractive to an alpha they favored. What if Steve was doing that to him? Wouldn’t that be something. “Come on now, focus. Just a couple more blocks. We’re almost at your building. Home stretch, pal.”

Bucky’s neck prickled, a feeling he was pretty sure had nothing to do with where Steve was trying to stick his hand. Again. He looked over his shoulder. Olivia O’Connor, one of the idle rich (well, rich for their neighborhood) gossips who seemed to spend all her free time at the grocer’s flirting with the stock boys, was trailing behind them, eyes on Steve. That explained it. Another alpha, one whom Bucky had never gotten along with very well, and one who had apparently taken a prurient interest in Steve. Bucky pulled Steve closer, feeling suddenly very protective. Steve hummed happily.

Almost there. Almost there. Almost—did she actually _whistle_ at Steve? Bucky stopped and turned his whole body to look at Olivia. She glared at Bucky then very pointedly turned her eyes to Steve and smiled, sweet and false. She gave an exaggerated sniff.

“So, Rogers, you finally presented? You’re what, sixteen, almost seventeen now? Awfully _late_ , I’d think. Or do all omegas present late?” Olivia said, drawing out her words, putting as much rude innuendo as she could into them. 

“He just took more time to mature than _you_ ,” Bucky said sharply.

“Your parents should hear you now, disrespecting your elders,” Olivia sniped back. “Little Stevie deserves a better alpha than that.”

“What, like you?” Bucky snorted. No one called Steve ‘ _Stevie_ ’ except him, his sisters, and Steve’s ma.

“Is this you relinquishing your silly little teenage claim? Because I could swoop in and carry him off, easily, and you wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.”

“No, it is not. Because I don’t have a ‘claim’ on him, and you don’t either. No one does, because he hasn’t chosen anyone yet. And you’ve never given him the time of day, so why the sudden interest?”

“I choose Bucky,” Steve said quietly, but neither Bucky nor Olivia seemed to hear him. The two alphas were intent in their stare-down.

“Oh, don’t be dense, you know exactly why. Besides, I think I could convince him,” Olivia smirked. “I’m older, wealthier, a _woman_ , and I’m more of an alpha than you’ll ever be, Barnes. No one knows how you managed that. You’re a beta, at best. You’ll never be a proper alpha.”

Bucky growled from deep in his core. “Nothing wrong with being a beta. Back. Off.”

“Oh, I’m so scared,” Olivia mocked, but she did take a step back. “It’d be _such_ a shame to lose a skinny, sickly little omega like him to a half-alpha like you. I can do better. I was just trying to give him an opportunity to move up in society.” She flounced and walked away.

“You didn’t have to growl at her Buck,” Steve said. “It’s not nice to growl at a lady.”

“Yeah, well she wasn’t bein’ a lady. She was _bein_ ’ rude. The worst kind of alpha, who thinks the world owes ‘em something just because of how they were born. Thinks they can swoop in and take any omega they want, just for a fling, just because you’re in heat. I know you’ve said you wished the girls would pay you some attention, but not _her_ , Stevie, not like this.”

“I don’t want _her_ attention,” Steve chuckled. “I may not like her much, but it’s still rude to growl at a lady.”

“Again, I wouldn’ta had to growl at her if she wasn’t being rude first.”

\----------------------

Bucky found the Rogers’ hidden key (he wasn’t about to go fishing in Steve’s pocket for his key, go giving him any more ideas than he already had) and let Steve into the apartment.

“Go sit down at the table, I’ll make you a sandwich or something,” Bucky said, closing the door and detaching Steve from his hip.

“What if I don’t want a sandwich? What if I want the ‘ _or something_ ’?” Steve said suggestively.

“Go sit down anyway,” Bucky said, more sternly. He didn’t want to have to pull rank on Steve, he knew Steve would resent being talked to like that, but he was becoming more of a problem than Bucky had expected. “You’re gonna get a cheese sandwich from me, and that’s it.”

“Now that’s just mean,” Steve said, squirming in his chair. “Stop being such a jerk. I _need_ this.”

“I know it feels like it. I mean, I don’t know how _you specifically_ feel right now, but I know how it gets for alphas. It’s not fun, but you’ll survive,” Bucky said, putting together Steve’s sandwich. “And I can’t do this, you’re not all yourself right now. I can’t know for sure that this is something you really want, something you might not have asked for if not for the hormones, or entirely the hormones talking. Do you even know for sure?”

Steve didn’t answer. Bucky closed up the sandwich and brought it over to the table.

The plate had barely touched the table before Steve had grabbed the sandwich and started eating. Bucky paused for a moment, then picked up an apple off the counter and sat down across from Steve. Steve immediately started playing footsie with him; Bucky moved his chair back out of his reach and finished his apple. Steve frowned at him the whole time.

“C’mon Steve,” Bucky said quietly. “You know I can’t. I won’t take advantage of you. You’ll agree with me tomorrow when you’re back to yourself and don’t feel so desperate anymore. If I sleep with you now, you’ll always resent it a little, I know you will. Even if you _do_ really want it, you wouldn’t want it to happen like that. My first rut, I ended up sleeping with Maryanne Delgiotto. It was kind of awkward for both of us. I mean, I liked her well enough, but I didn’t think I liked her that much. And to make things even more complicated, we ended up bonded for two _months_. I hadn’t learned about the different ways and kinds of bonding yet, and I was terrified that I’d be stuck with her for the rest of my life. I locked myself in my room when my second rut came on and wouldn’t come out until it was over. I didn’t want a repeat of the Maryanne situation. Mom and dad, they taught me everything they knew, but they’re both betas. They learned it all secondhand.”

“Is that why you won’t do this for me?” Steve asked. “Because you had a bad experience? Because you didn’t want to sleep with Maryanne, you think every time’s gonna be bad?”

“No! This is for _you_. And no, I don’t think every time’ll be bad. And when it was happening, I didn’t think it was a bad experience; I wasn’t thinking much of anything at all beyond the need to get my rocks off. I don’t want you to come out of this second guessing if you actually wanted it. If you still want this next time, talk to me before it really gets going, and we can figure it out, ok?”

“Fine,” Steve pouted.

“Glad we got that settled. Now go lie down. You can touch yourself in your own room and pretend it’s me if you have to.”

Steve stood up from the table, put his plate in the sink, and slowly walked to his room, casting disappointed glances over his shoulder at Bucky every few feet. 

When the door finally closed behind Steve, Bucky shuffled off to the bathroom and nearly collapsed, sinking down onto the floor. He leaned against the wall, gripping the sink with one hand and fumbling with the buttons of his pants with the other. It was almost too much having to tell Steve no all while practically drooling over how good he smelled. Steve wanted it, and he was doing everything in his power, deliberately or not, to make himself irresistible. The whole deal with the heat/rut cycle was to ensure the survival of the species where half the population was sterile (except in rare cases). Maybe it had been useful back in the caveman days, when if you lived to thirty you were doing pretty well, but nowadays, Bucky thought it _might_ have a few problems. Losing control over yourself two or three times a year, the urge to fuck seemingly the only thing that mattered. If you found the right person, someone you could life-bond with, then you wouldn’t be as affected by anyone else, but finding that right person? It just seemed like there was a lot of trial and error and alphas who got pushy and omegas who wouldn’t hesitate to use their scent as a weapon. 

Maybe things would’ve been easier if he’d been born a beta. Everyone said he wasn’t a proper alpha, anyway. And if being a ‘proper’ alpha meant acting like Olivia O’Connor or any of the alpha jocks at school, then maybe he didn’t want to be an alpha. Except that if he had been born a beta, then he’d never get a chance with Steve. Alphas were supposed to bond with omegas, and betas were supposed to bond with other betas. And don’t get started on two alphas or two omegas, the church ladies would have palpitations. So, maybe it was good that he turned out alpha. Next time Steve came into heat, he’d have to find out _before_ it got too far whether he still wanted to do this. But for now, he’d make do with jerking off in the bathroom to try to stave off a full rut, Steve’s scent still permeating his shirt where he’d held him the whole walk home.


	2. Chapter 2

Like everything else in his life, Steve was pretty sure his infrequent and irregular heats were due to his underlying health problems. All in all, it didn’t bother him too much. One less thing to worry about. Suppressants existed, but it’s not like he could afford them even if he could get a prescription, so he made sure to include in his prayers every so often a little word of thanks that he wasn’t ‘normal.’ His only regret was that because they were so irregular, he never really knew when it was going to happen. Some omegas he knew had it down to a science. They could tell you weeks in advance when it would happen, almost down to the hour, and they’d be right. Once he got more familiar with the feeling, he could usually sense it coming on about a half a day in advance. Which should have given him enough time to find a partner, except that the alphas he might have an eye on didn’t usually want anything to do with him, even with the promise of an oncoming heat.

And then there was Bucky. He remembered what Bucky had told him that first time. Just wait, and we’ll try next time, when you can give your full consent. Only problem, every ‘next time’ so far had coincided with one of Bucky’s short-term bonds. A bond, even a short-term one, offered a layer of protection from the influence of the single and horny. And even if he _could_ break through, he wouldn’t do that. Bonding was sacrosanct. So if he had to wait and hope that they’d cycle around at the same time some time, well, then he’d wait.

Bucky, it seemed, hadn’t quite picked up on that plan. He kept trying to set Steve up on dates with alphas he knew. Mostly women, the occasional man, but they never did seem to pan out. “Stevie, how many times do I have to tell you?” Bucky would tell him. “You don’t have to wait until you’re in heat to have sex. Yeah, I assume that’s when it feels best, but if it’s not happening, there’s no reason to deny yourself. And besides, as long as you’re both clean, you won’t have to worry about needing a rubber if you’re not in heat. Win-win.” 

Steve kept deflecting, kept waiting for Bucky’s latest bond to taper off. And every time when it did, he just sat there and did nothing. Waited for Bucky to make a move on him, and then slunk off, disappointed, when some other omega asked him first. Next time, he told himself. Next time I’ll ask him first. I asked him once, I can do it again. I don’t have to wait for him to ask me. We already _live_ together, this shouldn’t be so hard to do.

Steve kept putting it off until the day the world changed. The country, the world, was at war, and suddenly his plan to get Bucky into his bed seemed very small indeed.

\-------------------------------------

Bucky was coming home on leave this weekend, a brief respite from his Army training. Steve was a little nervous about Bucky finding out what he was planning to do. _He_ knew it was the right thing to do, but his coworkers at the advertising firm (well, the few whom he had told), thought it was too dangerous and urged him to reconsider. Which, honestly, made him even more resolved in his decision. He was tired of being little Steve with his head in the clouds who wanted to join the Army out of some overblown sense of patriotism, not any kind of ability. Who’d be doing his country a disservice by wasting the time of the men and women of the recruitment stations. At least they weren’t using the ‘stay home and have kids’ argument. Probably took one look at him and decided that he’d die if he tried. He pulled the little paper packet out of his pocket and just looked at it for a few moments, trying to convince himself that this was really real.

Heat suppressant drugs were one of the first things to be rationed. The omegas in crucial military positions, the scientists, the computers, the spies and strategists, they got preference. And Steve didn’t deny that they deserved it, but it sure made things harder here at home. If he was going to have any chance at getting into the army, getting past the physical, he’d have to get some suppressants for himself. The omegas who knew their cycles, all they had to do was go down to the recruitment station and schedule a physical on a day they knew they’d be safe. Steve hadn’t had a heat in close to eight months now, so he was overdue. He didn’t know if he had a couple days or a couple months, so the safest thing he could think of was to get some black market heat suppressants. 

And so he did. Steve carefully opened up the packet and counted out the ten dime-sized white tablets. Take two in the morning and hope that you didn’t end up with nausea as a side-effect. Nausea was distressingly common with the high-dose emergency suppressants. So, if he got lucky, he’d have five tries to pass his physical before he had to go back and see if he could get more. Assuming he could afford them. Bucky would balk if he found out how much these ten little tablets had cost. But if they got him into the Army, then they’d be worth it. And once in the Army, then they’d provide the safer, low-dose, daily suppressants. All he had to do was pass the physical.

\---------

It was late Friday night when Bucky let himself into his and Steve’s shared apartment, dropped his bag next to the front door, and gave a huge yawn. “C’mon, sit down and regale me with tales of civilian life. I’ve almost forgotten what it was like before I put this uniform on,” he said, flopping down onto the couch. The cushion crinkled, causing Bucky to fish around to see what he’d sat on. A piece of folded paper had gotten wedged down between the cushion and the arm of the couch. He unfolded the paper and read it.

“Really, Steve?” Bucky said. “An enlistment form? I thought we talked about this already. I told you they’d 4F you. I _told_ you. Asthma alone is an immediate disqualification.”

“I had to try,” Steve said obstinately, sitting down next to Bucky.

“Well, alright, I’ll give you that. They might’ve taken you for a non-combat job. Get you painting camouflage or something,” Bucky said. He paused and sniffed the air. “Speaking of that, have you been painting while I was gone? Something smells different.”

Steve shifted guiltily. Bucky turned his head, scrutinizing him.

“Steve, what did you do?” Bucky asked. 

Steve pinched his lips together, not meeting Bucky’s eyes.

Bucky sighed, leaned in and sniffed pointedly, nose practically touching Steve’s neck. He paused. He knew the smell. He _knew_ he knew it, he just had to figure out why and where he knew it from. Oh! Of _course_. The omega barracks, low but pervasive. The smell of heat suppressants.

“Suppressants, Steve? Really? Where did you get them?” Bucky asked. “How did you get them? _Why_ did you get them? You never wanted them before.”

“I had to,” was all Steve said.

“You ‘had’ to? What happened, Stevie? Are you ok? Do I gotta hurt someone for you?” Bucky said sharply. Steve could smell his righteous indignation rising.

“No, Buck. No. Not like that, I swear. Nobody’s been bothering me. I just needed them for the physical at the enlistment office. You know how I am. I’m overdue, and I can’t afford to go down there and have a heat start while I’m in the waiting room. And, well, they mask the smell of some of the other things I’ve got wrong with me,” Steve admitted. 

“So you’re trying to cheat your way into the Army?” Bucky said. “Steve, that’s not gonna work out for _anyone_. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Yeah? Well if I do, at least I’ll have gone out doing something _useful_ ,” Steve sniped. “Better than letting pneumonia get me when winter rolls around again.”

“Steve, don’t say shit like that,” Bucky said, suddenly dead serious. “You’re a tough little bastard. You’ve survived this much, you’ll keep going, outlive all of us. You’re too stubborn to die, unless you get into a fight with a tank or something. Which you _would_ do, don’t deny it. Which is why you can’t join the Army. You can do just as much, if not more, back here to help out the war effort.”

Steve glared at Bucky.

“Just don’t do it again, ok? Promise me you won’t try to enlist again?”

“Try again? Now where would you get an idea like that?” Steve sassed.

“Now that’s the Steve I know,” Bucky laughed, pulling him into a hug.


	3. Chapter 3

Two months later and Bucky was back again on leave, this time to spend one last night at home before shipping out. His company had all gotten their assignments and he was walking from the train station back to the apartment to give Steve the news. The sounds of a scuffle reached his ears and out of pure instinct, he turned to look down the alley in case he needed to step in. He sighed. Of course it was Steve. Who else would be trying to fight a guy twice his size in an alley in the middle of the day? He squared his shoulders and put on his best alpha walk and strode purposefully down the alley.

“Hey!” He said, grabbing the collar of the guy Steve was fighting and yanking him off. “Pick on someone your own size.”

The other alpha sized up the uniform, considering his chances. Bucky gave him a swift kick and sent him scurrying off before he could get a proper whiff and realize he wasn’t as strong of an alpha as he presented himself as.

Steve picked himself up off the ground and brushed off his clothes. “I had him on the ropes,” was the only explanation he gave.

Bucky noticed a piece of paper on the ground next to Steve that was in suspiciously better condition than the rest of the alley detritus. He scooped it up before Steve could get to it. Another enlistment form, another 4F.

“How many times is this now?” he asked, looking over the form. “Oh, you’re from Paramus now? You know it’s illegal to lie on your enlistment form? And seriously? _Jersey_?”

“You get your orders?” was all Steve’s response.

Bucky hesitated for a moment. He knew Steve wouldn’t like what he was gonna hear. “The 107th. Sergeant James Barnes, shipping out for England first thing tomorrow.”

“I should be there,” Steve huffed.

Bucky shook his head and threw his arm around Steve’s shoulders, steering him back out of the alley and diverting the conversation to a less sensitive topic. “Come on man, gotta get you cleaned up.”

“Why?” Steve asked. “Where are we going?”

“The future,” Bucky said, handing him a newspaper open to an advertisement for the 1943 World Exposition.

\------------------------------------

The double date Bucky had planned for them was going about as well as usual. Steve’s date was pointedly ignoring him, far more interested in _Bucky_ ’s date. Steve looked idly around the fairgrounds. All this future science, sure, it was interesting, but it didn’t draw him in like it did Bucky. He didn’t want to disappoint Bucky by asking to go home already; it was his last night in the States for who knows how long, and if he wanted to spend it at a science fair, then that’s where they’d be. But, maybe, if he disappeared for twenty minutes, Bucky would be too wrapped up in his date and the various demonstrations to notice he was gone. Then he could come back and pretend like nothing had happened. The Army recruitment booth was right there and it couldn’t take more than 20 minutes to get in, wait in line, and probably get rejected again. His record was four and a half minutes in Manhattan, most of that spent in line. The recruiter took one look at him and laughed. He didn’t even get to see the doctor to get the 4F stamp, the recruiter penciled it in at the front desk and shooed him out the door. Steve glanced over; Bucky was staring wide-eyed and entranced at Stark’s flying (falling?) car. He used the opportunity to slip away.

What was one more try? He was out of suppressant pills, anyway, having taken the last two that morning. Might as well get his money’s worth, try again one more time. He stepped up onto the toggle plate that lit up the mirror that made you look like you were a soldier in the uniform of the United States Army. His nose barely peeked over the painted collar. He stared a little longer before he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, ready to argue that he had as much right as anyone to be here. It was Bucky.

“You really gonna do this again?” Bucky asked.

“Well, it’s a fair. I’m gonna try my luck,” Steve joked.

“As who, Steve from Ohio? They’ll catch you. Or worse, they’ll actually take you.”

Steve felt his hackles rise. Bucky had always had an eye out for him, but he’d never been this overprotective before. Of all the people, he’d never thought Bucky would try to treat him like just another omega who needed to be coddled.

“Look, I know you don’t think I can do this,” Steve snapped.

“You don’t get it, Steve. This isn’t a back alley, it’s a _war_ ,” Bucky barked back.

“I _know_ it’s a war, you don’t have to tell me.”

“Then why are you so keen to fight? There are so many important jobs—”

“What, I’m supposed to collect scrap metal in my little red wagon?”

“Why not?”

“Bucky! I’m not going to sit in a factory—there are men laying down their lives, I got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand. You’re an alpha. You haven’t had your whole life people telling you ‘that’s not proper for an omega.’ This isn’t just about me.”

“Riiight,” Bucky drawled. “This is all about omega rights, not about _you_ personally. There were plenty of omegas at camp with me, this is you trying to prove a point.”

Steve just stared back at him, unwilling or unable to come up with a comeback.

Bucky shifted on his feet then finally broke the awkward silence. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back,” he said, turning to go.

“How can I when you’re taking all the stupid with you?”

Bucky stopped, hesitated, then turned back again. He pulled Steve into a hug. “You’re a punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve said, inhaling deeply, knowing that if he followed through tonight, he might not get to see or smell Bucky again for a long time, maybe even years. He’d be off to England first thing in the morning. The war in Europe had been going on for over two years now, who knew how much longer it would take. “Be careful,” he added, a little belatedly.

Bucky detached himself from Steve and walked off, pausing briefly to give a salute.

“Don’t win the war until I get there!” Steve called after him and turned back. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and walked back to the desk.

\----------------------------------------------

Steve sat at the kitchen table the next morning eating his oatmeal and staring at the big red 1A on his latest enlistment form. This was really happening. Doctor Erskine said he’d have a chance, only a chance, but that was more than anyone else had given him. The doctor hadn’t cared that he was a tiny, sickly omega. He wasn’t quite sure what the doctor was looking for, but apparently he had it. And this time tomorrow, he would be on his way to Camp Lehigh, New Jersey. _New Jersey_. He laughed to himself. If Bucky only knew.

\-------------------------------------------------

The chance had become reality. Steve was back in Brooklyn being driven… somewhere, with an SSR agent, Carter, he thought she was called. She had been silent so far, nothing unusual to Steve. Most alphas tended to ignore him until they were forced to get to know him. Steve made an attempt to start a conversation, break the silence.

“I know this neighborhood,” he said, pointing out the window. “I got beat up in that alley. And that parking lot. And behind that diner.”

Agent Carter turned to look at him, actually look at him, and asked, “Did you have something against running away?”

“Once you start running, they never let you stop,” Steve explained. “You stand up, you push back. Can’t say no forever, right?”

Agent Carter’s expression turned inwards for a moment. “I know a little of what that’s like, to have every door shut in your face.”

“You?” Steve asked, surprised. “But you’re an alpha.”

“Yes, and also a woman. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but many alpha men, and even some beta men, don’t like taking orders from a woman, even if she outranks them. They might do it, but they’ll make sure you know they don’t like it,” Agent Carter explained, a touch of bitterness in her voice. 

Steve shut his mouth. He hadn’t thought about that. He was so used to being looked down on or ignored by most alphas that he hadn’t noticed any _other_ power dynamics in play. Alpha women made up around 12.5% of the population, if his social studies classes had taught him right. So where _were_ they all? They weren’t in government, for the most part. Not in the military, except in women-only divisions like the WAACs. No, the women alphas were still in female-dominated professions, like education or medicine. They were the college professors, the school administrators, the factory forewomen, and the doctors. He’d had enough doctors’ visits as a child, and come to think about it, all of his doctors were women. He’d seen a few male nurses, but nursing was accepted as an omega’s profession, omegas supposedly being more nurturing and more willing and/or able to take orders from their doctors. 

“Sorry,” Steve said. “I hadn’t thought that it might be different for you as a woman and not just as an alpha.”

“Apology accepted,” Agent Carter said, smiling. “And I’m sure there are things I wouldn’t know about being an omega.”

“A what?” Steve asked, not recognizing the pronunciation.

Agent Carter looked at him funny for a moment, then gave a short laugh. “Of course. You Americans say it differently, don’t you? Oh- _may_ -gah, emphasis on the second syllable.”

The car pulled up at of a block of storefronts. “Well, here we are,” Agent Carter said. “Come with me and you can show them just what omegas can be capable of.”


	4. Chapter 4

Steve sat in his stall backstage, changing out of his uniform—no, his _costume_ —after another show. This wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he’d stepped into that recruitment station. He was going to be a soldier, go to Europe, fight for the little guy, fight the bullies. Instead he was a glorified showgirl in a USO show that hadn’t even left American soil yet. Because he was an omega and _entertainment_ was the omega’s territory, not soldiering. Show off for everyone, give the alphas in the front row a sniff, convince them to buy more War Bonds, he scoffed.

Not that he looked like an omega anymore. Doctor Erskine’s serum and Howard Stark’s Vita-Ray contraption had given him the classic alpha-of-alphas build. He wasn’t sick anymore, and he was strong as an ox. As a dozen oxen. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he didn’t quite smell the way he used to. Oh, he was still an omega though. Still got the omega treatment. Colonel Phillips, alpha enough to even make Agent Carter back down, had given the order and left him behind. He ought to be over on the front lines, doing some real good, not pretending to be an actor to convince rich alpha ladies to shower him with accolades and buy War Bonds all because they fantasized about bedding him. Thank God for the suppressants. He didn’t think he could deal with the indignity of going into heat on a USO tour. At least his coworkers were nice.

“Why the long face, Stevie?” Janet, one of his fellow showgirls, asked him.

“This is gonna sound rude, but when I joined up, I kinda thought I’d be doing something a little more important than this,” Steve replied.

“Ok, yeah, that was a little rude,” Janet retorted. “Not all of us look like we stepped out of a Charles Atlas cartoon. We’re here because, for us, this _is_ doing the important work. Like your script says, not all of us can drive a tank or storm a beach. Just keep your chin up. I heard we’re supposed to head out to Italy in November to do our little show for the troops. Won’t that be something? If you do your little motorcycle stunt in front of the top brass, somebody’s gonna notice.”

Steve looked up and gave her a quick smile. “You sound pretty sure about that.”

“You bet I am,” Janet said proudly. “My best girl, she’s a WASP. She used to be a stunt pilot, but she got her break when some old Colonel saw her at an air show in March of ‘42 and asked her if she wouldn’t think about putting her skills to work for the Air Force. She said that she hadn’t known there was a women’s division, and everything rolled into place after that.”

“Really?”

“ _Really_ really. You get out there and let ‘em see what you can do, somebody’s gonna ask why you hadn’t been out there from the beginning. Just you wait and see.”

“Thank you, Janet. I needed to hear that.”

“Yeah, well some of us omegas actually _embrace_ our omega-ness. I like helping people. I can’t stand kids, so I could never teach. I don’t think I could deal with being a nurse, the smell of illness makes me wanna hurl. So I joined the theater. I help people forget their worries when I’m on stage. And back stage? Well, you’ve met me. I’m the mama bear of the troupe, but less grizzly and more soft and fluffy Winnie-the-Pooh. You? You wanna help people, but in a different way. So get out there and _make_ someone notice you.”

\----------------------------------

Somehow, the first show on the European tour went even worse than his first show ever. Sure, he knew his lines by heart now, but the audience was decidedly more hostile. He’d actually had a tomato thrown at him. A _tomato_! Who got so mad at a stage show that they’d waste food over it? The girls were still performing, so he didn’t have anyone to commiserate with. He grabbed his sketchbook and a pencil out of his ‘locker’ and sat down on the steps up to the back of the platform they called a stage. A quick doodle or two should help bring him back down. About fifteen minutes later, he felt a presence watching him. He looked up, surprised to see Agent Carter standing over him.

“What are you doin’ here?” he asked, surprised.

“Officially, I’m not here at all,” she replied. “That was quite a performance.”

Steve grimaced. “Yeah, uh… I had to improvise a bit. The crowds I’m used to are a bit more, um, twelve.”

“I understand you’re America’s new hope,” Agent Carter said.

“Bond sales take a 10% bump in every state we visit,” Steve rattled off.

“Is that Senator Brandt I hear?” She asked wryly.

“At least he’s got me doing _this_. Phillips would have had me stuck in a lab.”

“And those are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey? You were meant for more than this, you know.”

Steve opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and looked away.

“What?” Agent carter asked.

“You know, for the longest time I’d dreamed about going overseas and being on the frontlines. Serving my country. I finally got everything I wanted and I’m wearing tights. I guess it’s true, no one gives an omega the time of day unless they’re _useful_ ,” Steve said, practically spitting out the last word.

Rather than get into the argument Steve so clearly wanted, Agent Carter changed the subject, hoping to show Steve that it wasn’t his fault that his audience was less than receptive. “Schmidt sent out a force to Azzano. Two hundred men went up against him; less than fifty returned. The rest were killed or captured. Your audience contained what was left of the 107th.”

“The 107th?” Steve asked, immediately perking up. He stood up and headed towards the command tent.

“What?” Agent Carter asked quickly, following Steve.

Steve strode into the tent “Colonel Phillips,” he asked without waiting for permission to speak.

Colonel Phillips looked up from his typewriter, clearly irritated by this unwelcome intrusion. Who did this omega think he was? Walking in like he owned the place and expecting him, a colonel and an alpha to just roll over for him. “Well, if it isn’t the star-spangled man with a plan,” he said sarcastically. “And what is your plan today?”

“I need the casualty list from Azzano,” Steve said, not even flinching as Colonel Phillips glared back at him.

“You don’t get to give me orders, son,” Colonel Phillips said, a growl rising in his chest. He wasn’t used to being questioned or insubordinated. This is what he got for agreeing to let Erskine experiment on an omega instead of that alpha boy, Hodge. Delusions of grandeur. 

“I just need one name: Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th.”

“You and I are going to have a conversation later you won’t enjoy,” Colonel Phillips said, pointing at Agent Carter. 

“Please tell me if he’s alive, Sir. B-A-R—” Steve said, yielding slightly. Colonel Phillips was the kind of old-school alpha who believed strongly in the social hierarchy. As much as Steve disliked playing the submissive omega, if he had to do it to find out if Bucky was alive, then he’d do it. He tipped his head back, exposing his throat. Show the alpha your vulnerability, get them to deescalate.

“I can spell,” Colonel Phillips sighed, standing up to flip through the stack of letters he’d already typed up. Maybe if he gave Rogers what he wanted, he’d leave. “I have signed more of these condolence letters today than I would care to count. But the name does sound familiar. I’m sorry.”

“What about the others?” Steve asked, not taking the ‘go away’ hint. “Are you planning a rescue mission?”

“Yeah, it’s called ‘winning the war’.”

“But if you know where they are, why not at least—”

“They’re thirty miles behind enemy lines, through some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We’d lose more men than we’d save,” Colonel Phillips explained, irritated that he had to explain something as basic as this. “But I don’t expect you to understand that, because you’re a chorus girl.”

“I think I understand just fine,” Steve said, setting his jaw but not lowering his chin. He was upset, but he needed to stay as much on the Colonel’s good side as he could. For now.

“Good! Then go understand it somewhere else. If I read the posters correctly, you’ve got somewhere to be in thirty minutes,” Colonel Phillips said, standing up in a tacit dismissal. 

“Yes Sir, I do,” Steve said half under his breath as he left the tent.

\---------

Agent Carter sighed. Rogers was going to do something foolhardy, wasn’t he? She followed him out, watching as he grabbed a helmet, a jacket, and his prop shield. He placed the shield in the back seat of a Jeep and climbed in. Yes, because driving a stolen Army Jeep to Austria was a _wonderful_ plan. And since when had he learned how to drive? The last time she had seen him trying to operate any kind of motor vehicle, he had smashed his show’s prop motorbike into a tree while trying to show off. She hurried up, catching up with him just as he started the ignition.

“What do you plan to do?” she asked. “Walk to Austria?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Steve said stubbornly, trying to figure out how to release the clutch.

“You heard the Colonel; your friend is most likely dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Even so, he’s devising a strategy to take the base.”

“By the time he’s done that, it could be too late! You said you thought I was meant for more than this. Did you mean that?”

“Every word.”

“Then you’ve gotta let me go,” Steve said, his voice saying that he’d go anyway even if she told him not to.

“I can do more than that,” Agent Carter said, capitulating a little. He was so stubborn, she ought not to encourage him, but a little voice inside her said that if anyone could manage it, he could.


	5. Chapter 5

If he wasn’t too busy coughing, Bucky probably would’ve laughed. Between himself and Steve, Bucky never thought he’d be the first one to kick the bucket by way of pneumonia (assuming Steve hadn’t omitted any pertinent details from his last letter). Because in a cold, damp, overcrowded HYDRA factory-work-camp-prison-thing, honestly, he didn’t give himself much chance of fighting it off. Especially with having to work through it. Did he mention the working-through-pneumonia thing? Because he was. And he was exhausted. Everyone was. How long had it been since his division had been captured? He wasn’t sure anymore. The monotony of the work, the fever from the pneumonia, and the lack of sleep from the coughing all helped make the days blur together. He barely registered when the cohort of masked guards came to collect him, dragging him to his feet and marching him off.

Then a cold gurney, needles, an injection of something that _probably_ wasn’t sulfonamide for the pneumonia, burning pain, cessation of said pain (probably unconscious), more pain, bright lights, an electrical hum, even worse pain, and through it all, a constant low chatter in German, most of which was too quiet for him to understand. He was pretty sure he had passed out again because the next thing he remembered was two HYDRA scientists having a loud argument at the foot of the gurney. He didn’t understand all the words, but he picked up enough to know that the small omega scientist was quite upset that ‘the subject’ (read: Sergeant Barnes) was an alpha. He had requested only omegas be collected for testing. The second scientist, a beta but clearly subservient to the omega, cringed and apologized, and tried to justify his mistake. The subject did not smell like an alpha. The scents of all the prisoners had mingled. The subject was ill, suppressing his scent. The subject was known to be a sniper, and that was an _omega_ ’s role, not one of an alpha. None of the previous subjects, all omegas, had survived, so was it really so bad that an alpha had been selected by mistake? 

The omega scientist finally noticed Bucky beginning to wake and raised his hand to silence his subordinate. He looked over, cold and detached, like Bucky was no more than a guinea pig, not a human, a prisoner of war with rights under the Geneva Convention. He said nothing, but flipped the light switch, blinding. The electrical hum again and the pain, somehow even worse than the previous times. Bucky passed out again.

\------------------------

Bucky’s sense of smell was the first to return this time as he began to become aware of his surroundings again. There was a new scent in the room. Not the scent of any of the HYDRA scientists. Not the disinfectant smell. Not the smell of electricity and blood. It was both familiar and alien.

His hearing returned next, his own voice echoing in his ears. His name, rank and serial number, just like they’d been trained to do. Another voice, speaking over his. “Oh my God…” the voice said quietly. The man, the owner of the voice, unstrapped him from the gurney.

His eyes must not be right yet, he thought. He must be hallucinating, going back into his head, to a safer place, because he could swear this guy looked like Steve.

“Steve?” Bucky murmured. It couldn’t be Steve. Not here in Austria, wearing a helmet and a bomber jacket, carrying a damn _shield_ of all things.

“Yeah, it’s Steve. It’s me,” Steve said, gently lifting him into a sitting position. 

“Steve!” Bucky said, smiling broadly. Either this was real and somehow Steve was here, rescuing him, or else the pneumonia had finally done him in. Either way, he might as well go along with it.

“I thought you were dead,” Steve said, his voice pained.

“I thought you were smaller,” Bucky slurred, apparently not fully in control of his faculties yet. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Steve just smiled and set him down on the ground, supporting him as he found his feet.

“What happened to you?” Bucky asked, stumbling after Steve as he jogged down the corridor.

“I joined the Army,” Steve said. Still cracking jokes at the most inappropriate times. Yep, this was definitely Steve.

“Did it hurt?”

“A little.”

“Is it permanent?”

“So far.”

Out of the corridor, into the body of the factory, now a madhouse of exploding munitions. “Up!” Steve commanded, and Bucky obeyed, climbing over a chain blocking off the roof access stairs, and ascending the stairs like his life depended on it. Because it did. Up the stairs, up, up, and up again, Steve catching him when he stumbled. Urging him upwards, gently but firmly. There’s the catwalk now. Almost there. Just gotta get up one more flight of stairs.

“So! Captain America! How exciting!” That voice. Bucky had heard that voice before. He turned, grabbing the railing to support himself as he saw who was standing across the catwalk. He hadn’t been aware that the phenomenon of tunnel vision extended to the ears as well, but apparently it did. The taller of the HYDRA men was still speaking, but his words were suddenly of no importance. The shorter man was the scientist, the doctor who had authorized the experimentation he had undergone. And if Bucky had thought his cold, clinical manner was frightening, then the look on his face now was even more terrifying. The barest hint of a smile, a smirk. He _knew_ something. Knew that whatever he had done had succeeded, or was succeeding, and that scared Bucky out of his wits. Fear and rage welled up inside him. They locked eyes, Bucky and the doctor, only breaking eye contact at the clang of a solid impact on metal. The little doctor pulled a lever, causing the catwalk to open and withdraw, separating Steve from his opponent, and stranding them on the opposite side from their escape route.

The taller man spoke again. “No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see, _I_ was his greatest success.” He dug his fingers into his chin and pulled. Bucky nearly vomited, except that he was pretty sure he hadn’t eaten in a couple days, leaving his stomach with nothing but acid and bile to bring back up. The HYDRA alpha, and he was very clearly an alpha in his temperament, peeled back his… skin? A mask? Revealing his true face: bright, angry red, the color of an open wound. Deformed. Noseless. 

“You don’t have one of those, do you?” Bucky quipped, afraid that if he treated this like anything less than a massive cosmic joke, that he would lose his damn mind. None of this made any sense. Steve had joined the Army and was now, somehow, practically seven feet tall and as broad as a bear. Bucky had caught pneumonia, had given himself about a zero percent chance of survival, had undergone painful experimentation, and had come out of it not only still alive, but also with his pneumonia gone as if by magic. He had just watched a man rip his own face off.

“You are deluded, Captain,” the HYDRA alpha continued. “You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality you are just afraid to admit that you and I have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I am an alpha. I embrace it proudly. Without fear!” He thumped his chest in a display of dominance.

“Then why are you running?” Steve just yelled back as him as he and the doctor stepped back into another passageway, the door sliding shut in front of them.

The factory continued to explode beneath them. Steve looked around, trying to find a way across, anything. A girder, there. He nudged Bucky over, urging him to cross first. Bucky swallowed his fear as best he could and climbed over the railing, placing unsteady feet onto the narrow girder. God, if you’re there, he thought, I know I’m not much of a praying man, but if you’re there, please keep me standing. If I fall, Steve will never forgive himself.

The girder creaked and shifted, and Bucky faltered, barely keeping himself upright. He gauged the remaining distance, the distressing sounds the girder was making, expanding from the heat of the conflagration below them, and sprinted. He leapt, catching the railing and hauling himself over as the girder collapsed. Leaving Steve marooned on the other side.

“Go on! Get outta here!” Steve yelled, waving Bucky on.

“No! Not without you! There’s gotta be a rope or something!” Bucky yelled back. Steve was the one solid point in this whole confusing mess. He might be a lot bigger and healthier now, but he was still Steve under there. If he lost that, he didn’t think he’d ever find his way back.

Steve looked at him, bent the railing (how?!), stepped back a couple paces, and took a running leap.


	6. Chapter 6

The Army doctors had offered him a medical discharge. Said he’d been through hell and no one would judge him if he wanted to go home. What was ‘home’ anymore? An empty apartment back in Brooklyn and the stares of his neighbors, distrustful at first, then turning to pity once they learned of his medical discharge. He looked fine on the surface, so if he’d gotten a _medical_ discharge, then it must’ve been the head shrinkers that wrote it. Shellshock. Couldn’t handle the war, poor boy. All the insincere concern, the pity, the ‘thank goodness that’s not me’ that Steve hated. Suddenly their roles had been reversed, it was he who was smaller now, he who had the doctors and nurses buzzing and whispering around him, and Steve who drew all the eyes in the crowd, leaving none for him. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Everything was still so surreal. He set down his empty tumbler.

“Another?” the barman asked.

Bucky nodded and watched the whisky rise to the two finger mark.

He took a drink. The whisky wasn’t doing as much as he had thought it would. Probably the pubs having to water down the stock because of the war. It was a crying shame.

Steve came in and ordered another round of beers for the guys. Some of whom used to be his men. They were all Steve’s men now, himself included. He’d have to remember the look on Colonel Phillips’s face when he agreed to let an _omega_ (even a now-huge, but still stubborn-as-hell omega like Steve) lead his own special team in the fight against HYDRA. As much as he thought, as he _knew_ , Steve deserved the promotion, his own demotion that came with it rankled a little.

Steve sat down next to him. “So, are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” he asked, a laugh coloring his voice.

“Hell no. The little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight? I’m following him,” Bucky said, half to convince himself, half to see Steve’s reaction. He leaned in and added, in a quieter, voice, “But you’re keeping the outfit, right?”

Maybe the alcohol was having a bit more of an effect than he’d realized.

Steve looked over at him with surprise which quickly turned to amusement. “You know what? I think it’s kind of grown on me.”

A flash of hope rose in Bucky’s chest. Was Steve actually flirting back? Why had it taken him this long? Never mind, he was doing it _now_ , so there was that…

The chatter at the bar suddenly changed tone. Bucky and Steve looked up. Walking up from the back of the pub was a brunette woman in a vivid red dress. At first glance, traditionally feminine, but Bucky could tell that she was an alpha, and a strong one at that. Use her looks to disarm you, then take you down with her smarts (and her fists). And she was focused on one thing right now: Steve. She must be the Agent Peggy Carter who Steve had told him about. Bucky tried to tamp down the feeling of being challenged. She wasn’t challenging him for Steve because he’d never actually had any kind of claim on Steve. _He_ ’d wanted it, but Steve hadn’t seemed to share his feelings, having never said anything after that first heat, making Bucky believe that it was all hormones and him being a familiar alpha who he could trust not to hurt him.

“Howard has some equipment he’d like you to try. Tomorrow morning?” Peggy asked.

Steve got a dopey grin on his face that said he was completely smitten. Bucky tried to look as if it didn’t bother him.

“Sounds good,” Steve replied.

“I see your top squad is prepping for duty,” Peggy said, gesturing towards the collection of laughing and singing men in the back room.

“You don’t like music?” Bucky asked. Not challenging her. _Don’t_ challenge her. He could smell her now and her scent was authoritative. She smelled compassionate, but that if she was pushed too far, she would not hesitate to rip you apart. She scared Bucky a little.

“I do, actually,” Peggy said, directing her reply at Steve. “I might even, when this is all over, go dancing.” She brushed his arm with her wrist, deliberately scent-marking him. Staking her claim.

All of Bucky’s instinct told him to fight her claim and assert his own. Except that Steve seemed more than happy to accept Peggy’s scent and her claim. He pushed the bitter feeling down.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Bucky added, a last ditch effort to draw her attention off of Steve.

“The right partner,” she said, still eyeing Steve. “0800 Captain.”

“Yes Ma’am, I’ll be there,” Steve replied with a grin.

Peggy walked off, most of the eyes in the pub trailing after her.

“I’m invisible. I’m… I’m turning into you. It’s like some horrible dream,” Bucky said, turning back to Steve.

“Don’t take it so hard,” Steve said, seemingly oblivious to the simmering near-conflict that just happened. “Maybe she has a friend.”

Bucky made a point of looking up at the clock on the wall. “Eh, maybe another time. I gotta be getting back. They’re _still_ not done debriefing me.”

“Still?” Steve said. “I thought you told them everything you could already.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they don’t _think_ there’s more. I’ve gotten pretty sick of interviews by now.”

“Do you want me to talk to anyone for you? I’ve got a _little_ bit of pull now,” Steve joked. “I could probably get them to lay off.”

“Thanks, but nah. I can handle them. I’ve got a few drinks in me, all I gotta do is dial up the ol’ charm, just like I used to. You enjoy yourself, go ‘talk strategy’ with your guys. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” Steve asked, one more time.

“I’m fine,” Bucky said, clapping Steve on the back (but carefully, keeping _his_ scent glands covered by his sleeve. He didn’t think that Peggy Carter would be one to back down from a challenge like that). “Go on, now. Don’t tell me that whatever was in that magic potion that made you big also took away your sense of fun.”

With that, Bucky tossed back his whisky and turned to leave. He felt Steve’s eyes on him as he walked away, but he wasn’t paying attention to that, no sir.

\------------------------------

The debriefing was a lie. Bucky just needed to get away and clear his head. Outside the pub, the night was dark, scattered cloud-cover blotting out half the stars. He walked slowly down the road, in no hurry to get back. Under the guise of stifling a sneeze, he gave his wrist an experimental sniff. He wasn’t sure if he’d notice if there was anything different about his own scent, but he’d have to try. Whatever HYDRA had done to him, it couldn’t have changed his basic physiology, right? No one could make an alpha produce beta or omega hormones instead, could they? He’d heard whispers about alphas who took illegal hormone blockers and lived as omegas, but he’d never met any. Didn’t know how it was supposed to work. HYDRA hadn’t been trying to do that to him, had they? The little doctor said he only wanted omega test subjects. When he got back, maybe he’d see if he could find someone who knew what he smelled like before Krausberg, before Azzano, to tell him if they thought there was anything ‘odd’ about his scent now.

Or maybe he was just slipping. He could be forgiven an off night after everything he’d been through. Maybe he hadn’t challenged Peggy because he could see how happy she made Steve. He probably hadn’t challenged Peggy because she was just a stronger alpha than him. Usually he could puff himself up and fake it, but around her, he didn’t really want to. He shoved his hands into his pockets and tried not to think about Steve and Peggy.


	7. Chapter 7

Winter had come and gone and come again and the Howling Commandos were back in Austria. One full year of beating HYDRA back and the six bases from the Krausberg map had been expunged. Countless smaller bases and outposts and secret hidey-holes had been eliminated. This latest HYDRA base had been successfully located and destroyed in record time. Ok, so the destruction might have been a bit overkill, and not entirely planned; Steve had been asked to make a call on trust, and he had.

The base was an Alpine outpost, far from civilization, and had been abandoned only a couple days prior. Reconnaissance had spotted HYDRA soldiers hauling equipment and weapons haphazardly down the mountains, through the snow to the nearest rail-line. The analysts tracked their aerial surveillance photographs back to find a tiny building perched on the side of a mountain. The intel had suggested that it ought to be looked into, to see why it was so secluded and why it had been so hastily abandoned, but that it probably did not present an immediate threat. Still piecing together what little scraps of information they had on where HYDRA’s final base might be, Steve had decided to investigate the outpost. The Commandos agreed, all voting in favor of the raid.

The base proved to be about as uneventful as the intel had promised. It was completely abandoned; drawers, lockers, cabinets, and everything hastily emptied and spirited away. It was unlikely that anything important that hadn’t been nailed down would have been left. And given the evidence, even some things that _had_ been nailed down had been carried off. Only the very large and very cumbersome equipment and furniture had been left behind.

Steve had been about to call everyone to order to head back out when he caught a sudden scent of fear. He immediately made a headcount, glancing around the room, trying to pick out who it was. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bucky, attempting to creep unnoticed back into the room. Feeling Steve’s eyes on him, he froze momentarily, looking distinctly shaken, then walked cautiously back to rejoin the group.

“Hey Buck, what’s up?” Steve asked, trying to keep his tone light.

“Look, um, I know usually we get in and out, take the small stuff we can, then leave the big stuff for the experts to poke over, but we gotta burn this place to the ground. Nothing leaves except us,” Bucky said, sounding like he had to force the words out.

“Can I ask why?” Steve said, slowly.

“I can’t tell you why,” Bucky said, more forcefully. “You’re just gonna have to take my word for it. Please. I don’t know what they already took, but just in case HYDRA tries to come back for anything, we gotta make sure there’s nothing left for them to find. Scorched earth.”

Nothing here needs to see the light of day. Steve was a little skeptical. The rest of the Commandos were a little skeptical. But when their sniper had a hunch, it usually turned out to be right. If Bucky said there was something here that HYDRA _really_ shouldn’t have the chance to come back for, _and_ that bothered him so much he couldn’t even say what he had found, then they were going to blow the hell out of the place.

\--------------

It was on the first night after they burned the base that Steve knew something was really wrong. Bucky had been withdrawn lately, but no one had thought much of it. He did that sometimes. He’d hang back from the rest of the Commandos during poker games when he was usually more than willing to play (and take their money), or volunteer for sentry duty when he didn’t have to. When asked why, he always answered that sometimes he just needed to deal with some things alone. He never specified what kind of things. He had been understandably tight-lipped about the exact nature of what he had experienced at Krausberg; it was his ordeal, and if he didn’t want to talk about it, well, then that was his right. But as soon as they had made camp that evening, Bucky had set up his tent and immediately scent-marked it. Of all the Howling Commandos, Bucky and Monty were the only alphas, and neither of them usually had any reason to impress their status on any of the others, but tonight Bucky threw subtlety to the wind and rubbed his wrists’ scent glands so vigorously over the canvas of his tent that everyone else feared for his skin. The scent was a sharp warning saying “Keep Out.” It was unusual behavior for Bucky, but an alpha’s mark was not something that could be easily ignored, so they gave him his space.

Well, except for Steve. He’d never been particularly good at following the rules. He’d had to hold his breath as he approached the tent, the scent was so strong, but he kept going. He pushed the tent flap open, ducking inside. Bucky was sitting cross-legged on his bedroll, one knee bouncing nervously, turned away from the opening of the tent. Sensing the intrusion, he turned and actually _snarled_ before realizing who his visitor was. Steve gave a conciliatory show of his throat.

“God, Steve. I’m sorry, but warn a guy first,” Bucky said, running his fingers nervously through his hair. “I didn’t think anyone would _want_ to try to get through the ‘zone of exclusion.’ I tried to make it smell as bad to the rest of you guys as I could.”

“Oh believe me, it’s plenty strong,” Steve said, sitting down on the ground across from Bucky. “I had to hold my breath to get past it, and I still felt _wrong_ coming in here.”

“Then why’d you do it? And, I mean, I can’t really smell myself in the same way you can smell me, but if it’s that bad outside, then isn’t it worse in here?” Bucky shifted, turning to face Steve.

“I did it because something’s gotten you really bothered and I don’t want you to be alone tonight. You don’t have to tell me what it is if you don’t want to, but I just wanted to be here for you if you wanted me. And the smell’s not so bad now that you’re not angry anymore. There’s still that undertone of discontent, but it just smells more like you in here now. I like the way you smell when you’re happy. Happi _er_.”

Bucky laughed. “Do you hear yourself, Steve? ‘I don’t want you to be alone tonight.’ ‘I like the way you smell when you’re happy.’ I sure hope for both of our sakes, you’re not suggesting what it sounds like you’re suggesting. Peggy would kill us both. I heard the Private Lorraine story, so don’t tell me she wouldn’t.”

Steve had the courtesy to blush and look away. Bucky wasn’t sure if this was embarrassment because he was wrong or because he was _right_.

“I love Peggy, I’d do anything for her. And I don’t know for sure if what I feel for you is the same as what I feel for her or not, it’s all kind of confusing, to be honest, but I know there’s something.”

Bucky blinked at Steve for a moment, taking in Steve’s words. “Run that by me again? I think I musta missed something, because it _kinda_ sounded like you just said that you’ve got feelings for me.”

“How do you define ‘feelings’?” Steve evaded.

“I dunno, Steve, how do _you_ define feelings?” Bucky countered, a little annoyed with Steve’s dancing around the topic. “You’re the one comparing me to your girlfriend.”

Steve wrinkled his brow, trying to figure out how to put his thoughts into words. “Like, friends, but… more? I don’t really know how to define the ‘more’ part yet. Outside of the heats, I’ve never really much wanted to sleep with anyone, so I don’t know if that factors in, especially since I was on suppressants since before I met Peggy. Around Peggy, I feel a lot like I do around you. I was a bit nervous around her at first because she’s an alpha— you and I met before either of us presented— but I got comfortable around her pretty quickly. You’re both really confident and good at what you do, and that makes me want to do better, too. Neither of you has ever held back to ‘spare my feelings.’ Neither of you ever talked down to me when I was small or because I’m an omega; do you know how good that made, makes me feel?”

“Being treated like any old Tom, Dick, or Harry makes you get the warm fuzzies?” Bucky questioned, raising one eyebrow.

“Well, it’s not quite that simple,” Steve attempted to explain. “You and me, Peggy and me, there’s _something_ there that’s _more_ than with anyone else. I just feel different. A good different.”

“I’ve seen you around Peggy. You two tease each other, she scent-marks you whenever she gets the chance and you let her do it. And then when you think no one’s looking, you get this dopey head-over-heels-in-love look about you. You two obviously have chemistry. Are you saying that I make you feel the same way Peggy does?” Bucky said, skin beginning to prickle. 

Steve nodded cautiously.

“Why are you telling me this now?” Bucky said quietly but forcefully. “Why would you do that? Tell me _now_ that you’ve got feelings for me. What am I supposed to do about it, huh, Steve? Peggy makes you happy, you make her happy, and I ain’t getting in the middle of that. I won’t challenge her for you. One, because you two are good for each other, and two, because I’d lose that challenge. I’m not too proud to admit that she outranks me. And you telling me now that if you hadn’t met her, then we mighta had something? It hurts, Steve. It hurts me to know that. Why didn’t you say something to me _before_ you met her?”

“I tried,” Steve mumbled.

“ _When_?” Bucky asked sharply.

“That first time, my, um, first heat,” Steve said quietly, not meeting Bucky’s eyes.

“What? Then? But you never said anything after that. I told you, in a heat or a rut, the hormones will make you say a lot of stuff you might not mean, and that if you really meant it, you should tell me again next time, before you got too far gone. And you didn’t. You never did.”

“I wanted to, but we never cycled up together. I never knew when a heat was going to happen, and when it did, you were always with someone else.”

“Stevie, if you’d’ve _said_ something at _any_ time, I would’ve _waited_ for you. When you didn’t bring it up again, I thought it was only your hormones talking, that you just wanted an alpha, _any_ alpha, and I was the closest one. How was I supposed to know if you never told me?”

“I don’t know, I was trying to figure out how to say something, but then Pearl Harbor happened and we were at war, and well, it was just gonna have to wait.”

“Are you blaming _the war_ for your inability to communicate with me? Because if you really did feel that way from the beginning, you had a communication problem _long_ beforehand.”

“Would you believe I wasn’t planning on doing this tonight?” Steve said sheepishly. “I don’t know what came over me. I just wanted to talk to you, make sure you’re ok. Are you feeling ok?”

“Not really,” Bucky begrudgingly admitted, “but I’ll get over it. I always do.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Buck. You’re my friend, my best friend, more than a friend, I don’t know. I don’t know. But some days, days like today, it feels like you’re pulling away and I reach out and can’t find you. I just don’t want to lose you,” Steve said morosely.

“I don’t want to lose you, either,” Bucky said softly, but with a finality that said that this conversation was over.

Steve got up to leave. At the opening of the tent, he turned back to Bucky and spoke. “We can talk about this again sometime later, yeah? Tidy up the loose ends?”

“Sure, if you think there’s loose ends, I’ll talk ‘em out. Just not tonight, probably not tomorrow either. I don’t know, Steve. This has been a bit to absorb, you understand? It might take some time for me to be able to talk about it again without getting upset,” Bucky said.

“Of course,” Steve replied. “Take as much time as you need.” 

Steve climbed back out of Bucky’s tent and returned to his own.

\--------------------

The next day was no easier. Bucky had grown even more reticent and it was clear that Steve was upset about something, but trying to hold it together for the rest of the men. It was also clear that the two of them were avoiding each other, something that worried Gabe and Dum Dum enough that they briefly considered staging an intervention to ask Steve what had happened when he had talked to Bucky the night before to get him this upset. Because if the message that had been radioed in that morning was going to be confirmed, then they’d need everyone working together and absolutely on top of their game. There was a chance, slim but promising, that in two days, they’d have an opportunity to strike a crushing blow to HYDRA. The same isolated rail line that had served to evacuate the now-destroyed Alpine base was to play host to a train expected to carry Arnim Zola. If they could capture him, bring him out of the Red Skull’s shadow, then maybe they had a chance to turn him. But to even have a _chance_ to capture him, it would be a tricky operation, and not one they could manage if their CO and their sniper weren’t on speaking terms.

If Steve and Bucky still weren’t talking to each other by this time tomorrow, then someone would have to step in. Gabe looked at Dum Dum. Dum Dum shook his head. No thanks, not gonna get in the middle of a sulk-fest like that. Send Monty to do it, he could out-alpha Bucky if it absolutely came down to it. Maybe they’d make Dernier talk to Steve. Steve’s French still wasn’t as good as he would have liked, so he’d actually have to _listen_.

\------------

Whatever tension might still be hidden beneath the surface, Steve and Bucky were professionals. They wouldn’t let the Commandos down. The line had been set and tested for weight. The train was on schedule. All they needed was the confirmation that Zola would be onboard. 


	8. Chapter 8

Steve sat in the bombed out pub slowly putting away a bottle of gin which had survived the destruction. It wasn’t doing anything for him, but he kept drinking anyway. Maybe if he pretended hard enough he might be able to get a _slight_ buzz off of it. Anything would be better than this _numbness_. He had already passed through the anger, the guilt, the self-doubt. He hadn’t done enough to square things with Bucky, hadn’t apologized for putting him in the situation where he had to respond to his admission of feelings. Maybe if he hadn’t had pushed Bucky when he wanted to be left alone, maybe they would’ve been more in tune with each other, like they usually were. Had been. Even the recriminations were better than the absence of feeling, the empty pit that the alcohol couldn’t fill. His last proper conversation with Bucky had been an argument. There was no penance that could absolve him of that.

And worse, he couldn’t even go to Peggy right now because all he could think of was Bucky telling him that she was good for him, and that he wouldn’t stand in their way. He loved Peggy. He had to hope that he hadn’t managed to destroy two relationships, two friendships at the same time.

Steve poured another glass of gin and slumped down in his chair.


	9. Chapter 9

The interviewer changed the tape and made sure the camera was focused again before resuming. Peggy made sure her safe, practiced ‘public relations’ smile was on. The interview hadn’t been too bad so far, but a couple of the questions seemed to indicate that the interviewer maybe wasn’t _quite_ as educated on the subject of Captain America as he thought he was. Not even ten years later and people were already beginning to forget what had actually happened.

“Well, that’s good to go, Ms. Carter. Back to the story,” the interviewer said. “Could you describe how it felt to know that your relationship with Captain Rogers was doomed?”

“What do you mean?” Peggy replied. “I could hardly have expected him to crash a plane into the ocean. I realize that it was war, we never pretended like we were immortal, but we also never planned for it to end like it did.”

“Well, not ‘doomed’ in that sense,” the interviewer hemmed. “I meant more in the ‘star-crossed lovers’ sense, how did you deal with the instinctive aggression and society’s views on alpha-alpha pairs, even male-female—”

“Alpha-alpha pairs?” Peggy interrupted. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, you’re an alpha, I can tell that, and of course Captain Rogers was an alpha, so…?” The interviewer fumbled.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you have been misinformed. Steve was not an alpha,” Peggy said, politely but firmly.

“Captain America was a beta?” the interviewer asked, less confidently.

“No,” Peggy said sharply correcting him. “Steve was an omega. Up until this point, your questions had been fairly well-informed, with a few easily corrected errors and omissions; clearly you had done _some_ research. So I must ask, _who_ told you that he was an alpha?”

“Um,” the interviewer mumbled, shrinking from her pointed stare. “No one told me that. It’s just, everyone knows. Of course Captain America was an alpha. What else could he have been to be able to lead such an off-beat group such as the Howling Commandos and to have bested the Red Skull in combat?”

“You said at the beginning of this interview that you consider Captain Rogers one of your idols, yes?” Peggy asked. The interviewer nodded. “Then you should not be complicit in the erasure of his identity. Steve was not ashamed of being an omega. He knew that leadership qualities did not come solely from a fluke of one’s birth. Yes, most of the Army’s positions of power were held by alphas, but that didn’t necessarily mean that every alpha was a good leader or that every good leader was an alpha. Steve’s men followed him because he respected them and they respected him.”

“Thank you Ms. Carter, this has been… enlightening,” the interviewer said slowly. “I think that this concludes our interview. Thank you again for your time.” He stood up to shake her hand, then set about packing up his camera and recording equipment.

\---------

If the last tape from the interview mysteriously disappeared, well, then there were only two people who knew it had existed. If Ms. Carter raised any questions, he could always say that the film had been damaged beyond repair during editing. Sincerest apologies. 

Captain America _hadn’t_ been an omega, it just wasn’t possible. No one would believe it. America’s symbol couldn’t have been an _omega_.


	10. Chapter 10

Steve looked at the packing boxes (few in number though they were) and sighed. Everything was so _surreal_. Barely three months ago he had woken up in a strange room, been told that he had been frozen in Arctic sea ice for almost seventy years and that he was now living in the future, had been recruited to another team of ‘soldiers,’ (the Avengers weren’t the Howling Commandos, _that_ was for certain) and been asked to defeat actual literal space aliens with his new team. And now he was moving to Washington, DC to work for S.H.I.E.L.D., the successor to the SSR. Peggy had helped found S.H.I.E.L.D. He may not know all the intricacies of this new world, but he knew he could at least try his best to live up to Peggy’s legacy by helping her organization keep the country safe. 

Tony Stark had offered him a permanent position doing… something, he wasn’t sure if Tony had even defined what the job would be, at Stark Tower in Manhattan, but he felt the need to decline. Sure, it was tempting to stay in New York, but it wasn’t his New York, and honestly, it was all a little too much to take in right now. And besides, he’d only be a couple hours away by plane, even faster if they used one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s quinjets. If the Avengers needed him, he’d be there for them. But for his day-to-day life, he had to try to fall into a routine again and stay busy. S.H.I.E.L.D. offered him a chance to serve his country again, and he took it. And maybe, just _maybe_ he’d be able to use some of his influence the next time S.H.I.E.L.D. thought about doing something stupid like trying to use the Tesseract to make weapons. Help keep them honest.

Steve’s phone beeped. He checked the message; the moving truck was here. He scanned the bare apartment again, checking for anything he might have forgotten before heading down to meet the movers. Make sure everything got loaded, then hop on his bike and begin the ride down to Washington. It would be about four hours on the highway, but he thought that he could do with a nice, long ride to help try to clear his mind. Clear mind, fresh start.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve certainly didn’t regret joining S.H.I.E.L.D. No, it was a good job, got him doing things that mattered. Kept him busy enough that he didn’t have much time to get lost in his head again, not like that first drifting and lonely week out of the ice. He had a job, a purpose again. The Black Widow, Natasha, fellow Avenger and now fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, recognized when he needed space and when he needed a friend. She seemed maybe a bit distant at most times, but she was there when Steve needed someone. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t perfect, maybe there were still things they weren’t telling him, but as long as the unequal information flow didn’t affect the work he was asked to do, then he supposed he could let it go. It didn’t seem to bother Natasha, so maybe he was just getting hung up on the little things because arguing was something familiar and almost comforting to him. Because if he didn’t let it go, then he’d never get anything done. Fury held his cards close to his chest, but he always had the right information at the right time.

Steve trusted Nick Fury. Fury was an alpha, but he didn’t flaunt his status. Oh, he could influence anyone he needed to and they probably wouldn’t realize he was doing it until long after it was done. He was subtle about it, which made him a good director. He could keep the other alphas under him in line without turning to overt aggression. Unless, of course, you really deserved it. So maybe he and Steve butted heads occasionally over matters of policy, but Steve knew that, just as he was doing the best he could with the resources and information he had, so was Fury. 

Even so, there were still days when Steve wondered if there might be something he could do that would suit him better than S.H.I.E.L.D. He stayed because of Fury. He stayed because of Natasha. He stayed because it was Peggy’s organization. He stayed because when he weighed the benefits over the drawbacks, the benefits won out. That still didn’t mean that there weren’t days when he went straight home after work and sat in his living room, listening to the old records S.H.I.E.L.D. had found for him (never mind that some of them hadn’t been recorded until after he’d ‘died,’ they meant well), doodling aimlessly, and trying to go back to somewhere (some _when_ ) he felt more at home. For the most part, he liked the future, but sometimes he felt out of place. The days when he came home with the echoes of conversations he hadn’t been meant to hear repeating in his head. Words to the tune of ‘I know he’s more than earned his title, but it still feels so _weird_ that Captain America’s an omega’ was distressingly common. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

He knew the bad days would never truly go away, so he’d just have to try to make sure the good days consistently outnumbered the bad ones. And despite the bad days, things really had improved since the 40’s. He just had to remind himself of that sometimes. He decided to take up Natasha’s suggestion that he actually get out and try to make some new friends outside of work. The past was past, and it was past due time for him to try to move on with his life.


	11. Chapter 11

Sam was currently sixteen pages into a forty-one-page thread on the Unofficial Captain America Fan Club’s message board in an attempt to answer the question which had been bugging him for almost a week now: was the cute but maddeningly shy dude who had been ‘subtly’ shadowing him during his morning run actually Captain America or not? Yeah, he _looked_ like him, but a lot of guys tried to look like Captain America. Sam’s main hangup was that his not-so-secret admirer smelled like an omega; half the books he’d read about the man said that Captain America was an alpha, and the other half didn’t say anything at all. Which, Sam supposed, was a bit suspicious. Because if Captain America really was an omega, then he could easily see how the powers that be would have been tempted to rewrite their idol to better suit the image of what they wanted him to be, and then the books that followed those… But Captain America had been back for two years now, so _someone_ would have to know _something_ , right? Which was how he had ended up on the Unofficial Captain America Fan Club’s message board reading a thread arguing about what Captain America had in his pants. He sincerely hoped that his ISP wasn’t judging him too hard over this.

\------------

By the time Sam had made it to the end of the thread he was just about ready to throw his laptop out the window and swear off the internet forever. The thread had progressively deteriorated into two people attempting an explicit Captain America/Iron Man roleplay, five others yelling at them to start a new thread if they wanted to roleplay, fourteen more egging the roleplayers on with increasingly more absurd suggestions of scenarios, and one persistent user who insisted that Captain America ought to be shipped with the Black Widow instead of Iron Man, I mean, come _on_ , at least pick a _female_ omega. He sighed. It looked like he’d have to do this the old fashioned way. Sam would give Mr. Tall, Blond, and Awkward a couple more days of being shy before he’d have to make _his_ move. 


	12. Chapter 12

“Alright, Steve. Spill it,” Natasha said over cafeteria coffee and donuts. “You’ve been mooning for about a week now. Who is she and why are you eating stale donuts and going into work on a Sunday with me instead of treating her to a nice brunch somewhere with Belgian waffles and mimosas?”

Steve blushed slightly. “Um,” he said, taking a sip of still too-hot coffee to give himself time to come up with an answer. “I know a lot of things have changed since the 40’s, but some things definitely haven’t. What’s the current thoughts on dating outside of alpha-omega and beta-beta? I mean, it _happened_ back in the day, but it wasn’t encouraged.”

“Oh?” Natasha said, sounding intrigued. “So she’s a beta, is she? Society’s a lot more accepting about a lot more varieties of relationships than it used to be, but it still comes down to personal preference. Have you asked _her_ how she feels about dating an omega?”

“Not yet,” Steve replied.

“Well why not?” Natasha asked bluntly. “You’re clearly smitten, and maybe she likes omegas. You’ll never know unless you ask.”

“Yeah,” Steve replied with a slight bob of his head. “I can ask. What’s the worst that can happen, I get told no?”

“That’s the spirit,” Natasha said, giving Steve a friendly punch to the bicep.


	13. Chapter 13

Yep, pretty sure Mr. Tall, Blond, and Awkward actually _is_ Captain America, Sam thought to himself as the guy blew past him at inhuman speed for the third time already this morning. Was this his version of flirting? Because if so, come on man, give me a chance to respond. Also, if it was in fact his version of flirting, then someone ought to inform him that it was considered generally impolite to jog the person to death before actually speaking to them. Sam finished his run, a full minute under his previous best time, and collapsed under a tree to try and catch his breath. He closed his eyes and tried to convince himself that this was real.

“Need a medic?”

Sam opened his eyes. Yep, Captain America was standing right there in front of him wearing a flirty grin and the single most obscenely tight compression shirt in the universe. Oh, this morning was unfolding in _quite_ an interesting fashion. Sam smiled back.

\-------------------------------------------

Steve settled into his seat for the short drive to the Triskelion and clicked the AC on. Natasha gave him a quick glance.

“I know you run hot, but is it really warm enough out to put the air on? Your window’s already down,” Natasha said.

“I’ll turn it off in a couple,” Steve replied. “Usually I finish my run with a light cool-down jog back home and a shower and I haven’t had either of those. Any chance I’ll have time to get that shower before whatever mission Fury’s sending us on?”

“If you’re quick, yeah,” Natasha said, adding a theatrical sniff. “And I think you’ve got the right idea there, you kinda stink right now.”

Steve grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled it up to check. Aw, come on, I don’t smell _that_ bad. Wait. Unless… He did the mental math.

“Damn,” Steve said quietly.

“What is it?” Natasha asked, taking her eyes briefly off the road to look at Steve.

“Wanna think back to last Thanksgiving and take a guess?” Steve retorted.

Natasha’s eyebrows went up. The lightbulb clicked. “You’re due,” she said.

“Yep,” Steve said.

“So, make that a shower _and_ a stop at the S.H.I.E.L.D. pharmacy,” Natasha replied. “So, got plans for this go-around or are you just gonna hole up in your room with five pounds of mashed potatoes and gravy again? Tony is still upset that you ate all the potatoes.”

“I’m never gonna live that down, am I?”

“Nope.”

\----------------------

Steve took the water bottle and little paper cup with the three pale blue extended release emergency suppressant capsules. He popped the capsules in his mouth and swallowed them down all at once with a swig of water. Extended release medicines were definitely one of the good things about the future; he wouldn’t have to worry about taking a second (or third, depending on how long the mission lasted) dose mid-mission. One, who has time for that when you’re punching bad guys? And two, the less he reminded the S.T.R.I.K.E. team he was an omega, the better. Some of them weren’t so bad, but some of them definitely resented being led by someone who they considered ‘below’ them in the social hierarchy. 


	14. Chapter 14

Coming off of emergency suppressants wasn’t exactly what Steve would describe as ‘fun.’ All the suppressants, daily low-dose included, did was delay the heat, not eliminate it completely. He was certainly glad they existed, but the closer he was to the start of his heat, the worse it was when they wore off. He felt antsy, itchy, as his hormones built back up again. His body did not like being interrupted; the hormones briefly over-producing before dropping off and then ramping back up to normal heat levels. He probably wouldn’t mind the heats so much if he had the right partner, but he needed to get to that point on his own. It didn’t really help that Natasha had spent her free time before, after, and even _during_ the mission, trying to guess which beta he had his eye on, all while naming off every eligible alpha female she could think of, trying to set him up. She meant well, but he wanted someone who he could connect to, not just wham, bam, and thank you ma’am. 

Steve shifted on the couch. His mind kept coming back to one person. Sam from his morning run. Yeah, Sam was a beta, but they’d hit it off pretty well, clicking immediately. Medically, he couldn’t find any reason why he _couldn’t_ sleep with a beta, especially if he wasn’t ready for kids. If he could spend a heat alone with nothing more than various discomforts, then he could certainly spend it with a beta. He wasn’t _absolutely_ sure Sam was flirting back, but he could go find out, right? Yeah. Of course he could. He knew his body pretty well by now; he’d passed the spike and the plunge, and was slowly building up again. He thought he had probably five or six hours before he ought to sequester himself. That was more than enough time to get to the VA, inquire at the desk about Sam, and pick up where he’d left off at the park when his job had so rudely interrupted his attempt at flirting.

\--------------

“…What makes you happy?” Sam asked.

Steve paused. This was his opening, gift-wrapped and everything. “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging a little. “I’ve got an idea, if you don’t mind taking this conversation a little less public?”

“Oh?” Sam said, raising an eyebrow. “Picking back up where we left off yesterday morning, are we?”

Steve nodded.

“Well, meeting room four’s empty right now. As long as we’re out by noon, no one should bother us.”

“Lead the way.”

\-------

Sam closed the door and pulled out two chairs from the long table. He sat down in one and gestured Steve towards the other. Steve hesitated for a moment, then sat down facing Sam.

“So, I have, um, a proposition,” Steve began, voice a little quieter than out in the hallway, hands shifting in his lap. “And it’s fine if you don’t want to, I mean, I’ll make do. Uh. Well, you know I’m an omega.” (Sam nodded.) “And you know about the omega heat cycle, yeah?” (Another nod.) “I was wondering if you might want to… oh, hell, stop being so vague, Steve,” Steve muttered to himself. A little louder, he added “I’m going into heat. I thought we clicked pretty well yesterday and I wanted to ask you if you wanted to join me tonight.”

“Before I say yes, you know I’m a beta, right?” Sam said. Steve nodded. “Ok, good, just getting that out of the way. But yeah, if you’re offering, I’m accepting. What time? Your place or mine?”

“My bedroom shares a wall with my neighbor, if that influences your decision. Do you have any shared walls?”

“Not on the bedroom side. So, my place?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I know the health class basics about heats, but I’ve only ever been with other betas before. How much time do you have? Should we head back now or do I have time to clean up a little and get things together? What about lunch? Dinner?” Sam asked.

“We’ve got some time. Let’s say, to be safe, I’m at your place by three, and we can do dinner afterwards. I can bring take-out if you don’t feel like cooking. How’s that sound? Wait. Would you have to talk to anyone about taking off early? I don’t want to get you in trouble for this,” Steve said.

“I’ll be fine, they understand if I need to take off early sometimes. So, I’ll see you at three?” Sam replied.

\-----------------

Sam led Steve into his bedroom, gave a sweeping gesture with one hand, and said “Make yourself at home.”

“Oh, I will, thank you,” Steve said, quickly stripping his clothes off and flopping down onto the bed. “Don’t make me wait too long, ok?”

“Hey, I’m worth the wait,” Sam said as he pulled his shirt off.

“Damn, you’re gorgeous,” Steve said quietly, watching Sam undress. He rolled onto his side to get a better look.

“Don’t rush me,” Sam said lightly, adding his pants to the growing pile of discarded clothing. “Some of us don’t have the benefit of supercharged hormones.”

“ _This_ here now is good, but the hormones aren’t always a benefit,” Steve said. “Sometimes it’s just a real pain in the ass (literally) when your body wants something you can’t, don’t want to, or aren’t prepared to give it. I’ve spent enough heats alone to know it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“You?” Sam said incredulously. “Who’d turn down Captain America?”

“Well, maybe not Captain America, but as plain old Steve Rogers, I got turned down enough that I eventually stopped asking. Anyone I was interested in, either they were already bonded, not interested back, or I was on suppressants for the war and didn’t go into heat to find out for sure. Maybe I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t always look like this, you know. Would you have said yes if I was still five-foot-four and not even 100 pounds?” Steve asked.

“You were still the same on the inside, right?” Sam replied. “I might’ve needed a little more time to get to know you, but from just what I’ve gotten to know in these few days alone, absolutely. You’re a good guy, Steve. I like you. And no, it doesn’t hurt that you’ve got the body of a Greek god, but I’d still like you even if you didn’t.”

“Y’know, I think you actually mean that,” Steve said, grinning.

“Of _course_ I mean it,” Sam teased back. “I don’t say something if I don’t mean it. _And_ I’m much more of a bottom in bed, so the fact that you’ve gotten me to agree to top says a lot.”

Steve sat up. “Wait, you don’t like to top? You don’t have to do this for me just because I’m in heat; I’ll survive. Like I said, it’s not exactly a new experience for me to not get laid.”

“It’s just not my usual preference, I’m not _totally_ against it. I can be flexible when the occasion calls for it. So what do you like?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know, I haven’t actually gotten this far with anyone before.”

“Well, let’s play it by ear and you can tell me what you think, ok? Anything you don’t like, tell me and I’ll stop. Don’t feel like you gotta do something just because I want to.”

“Oh, I know. Now how about you get down here and show me a thing or two?”


	15. Chapter 15

Steve sat in his living room, sketchbook resting in his lap, pencil in hand. Sam liked him. He liked Sam. A lot. He wouldn’t’ve asked to spend the night with him if he didn’t. (And it _was_ a pretty good night, even with the little hitch at the end.) So why was he sitting in his living room at 7:30 am with a bagel with cream cheese and a blank sketchbook page instead of at Sam’s kitchen table (with a bagel with cream cheese)? Because he was a bona fide idiot, that’s why. Because he had panicked; no one at work knew he liked women _and_ men, and he wasn’t sure they’d want to know that (he’d been dismayed to learn that so many books about him said that he was an _alpha_ ) because it didn’t fit the public perception of who he was. Because Sam was a beta and he was an omega. But mostly because no matter how hard he tried, he hadn’t been able to move past Bucky. And Sam deserved someone who could give him their full attention. He didn’t want Sam to feel like he was a rebound, or a second choice. He’d have to decide before too much longer whether he was going to break it off, or tell Sam why he’d panicked and see if Sam would like to try to make things work.

Speaking of _work_ , he should probably focus on finishing his report on the Lemurian Star, rather than the completely theoretical poses he’d love to draw Sam in.

\------------------------------------

Yes, Steve had planned to see Sam again. No, this was not how he had planned on doing it. Finding out that HYDRA was not only alive and well, but actively using S.H.I.E.L.D. resources to try to murder him and Natasha? Well, that definitely threw a wrench into his plans. With Fury dead and S.H.I.E.L.D. compromised, Sam was the only person he could trust right now. He parked the ‘borrowed’ truck (thankfully it had been parked far enough away from the missile strike that it hadn’t taken too much damage to still be drivable) on the street a couple blocks from Sam’s duplex and nudged Natasha awake.

“Where are we?” Natasha asked, her voice still slightly blurry. Steve hoped this was just what she sounded like when she first woke up, and not anything due to the explosion. 

“We’re going to a friend’s house. He’s safe,” Steve said, not going into more detail than absolutely necessary. Besides, Natasha would probably pick up on everything as soon as they got inside.

“A friend? From outside of work? Good for you,” Natasha teased. 

Yeah, she’ll be just fine.

\----------------------------------------

Natasha let Steve help her out of the truck (the passenger side door had been warped shut and she had to climb out Steve’s side, that was the only reason she needed any help, thank you very much) and they climbed the steps up to knock on Steve’s friend’s door. She stood on the top step waiting as Steve nervously scanned the neighborhood. The click of a latch and his focus was immediately back as the door slid open. The man inside gave the two of them a brief confused glance-over, then gave Steve an even briefer, but much harder to read look.

“Hey, man,” Steve’s friend said. 

“I’m sorry to do this. We need a place to lay low,” Steve said, apologetically.

I remember you, you’re the guy from the park, Natasha thought, studying him. And just what kind of a look was _that_ that he gave Steve? Ok, so maybe they’re something a little more than just friends? There’s clearly something hanging between them, but Steve still immediately chose to go to him over anywhere else, Natasha thought. Out loud, she added “Everyone we know is trying to kill us.”

“Not everyone,” Steve’s friend said, inviting them in.

Steve’s friend introduced himself as Sam Wilson, formerly of the 58th Pararescue. Natasha gave a discreet sniff. The duplex smelled like beta. And given the palpable tension between the two of them, Natasha was willing to hazard a guess that Sam was the beta Steve had mentioned earlier that week. And definitely not the ‘she’ she had assumed. Well, maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to assume. 

“I’m gonna go take a shower real quick…?” Natasha said, breaking the awkward silence.

“Oh, ok, yeah, sure. I’ll show you where it is. Clean towels are in the closet in the hall, take what you need,” Sam said, getting up.

“I’ll probably be about ten minutes,” Natasha added, “if you need a little time to talk about whatever it is between you that you can’t say in front of me, ok?”

Steve looked visibly relieved.

\----------------------------------

“So, um, yeah. I’m sorry I left without saying much of anything,” Steve said, looking at his hands.

“Ok, that’s a start,” Sam replied. “You gonna tell me why you left?

“Lemme start out saying it was absolutely not your fault,” Steve responded. “It was good. I mean that. It’s just, well, you remember when I kinda disappeared into my head? Apparently I’ve still got a few issues to work out. I thought that if I tried hard enough, I’d be ok, but I guess not.”

“What kind of issues?” Sam pressed. “Was it the whole first time deal? Because if I pushed you too far too fast, I apologize. I can’t take back what we did, I mean—”

“No, no, that wasn’t it,” Steve interrupted. “It’s not your fault, you didn’t push me. I knew what I was doing. I _wanted_ it. I liked it. And, well, just because I hadn’t slept with anyone before, didn’t mean I never _wanted_ to. I was… remembering. That’s where the complication comes in.”

“Oh,” Sam said slowly. “There’s someone you’re not over yet.”

“Apparently not,” Steve said quietly. “And I shouldn’t still be hung up on him, but I am. He’s dead, nothing ever came of it. I don’t _try_ to think about it, but sometimes it just happens. I can still see every missed opportunity, every moment I could have said something but didn’t because I was too afraid that he didn’t see me like that. I still sometimes get this feeling of ‘what if I’d told him as soon as I knew for sure?’ and I know it’s stupid, but I do.”

“So now what?” Sam asked. “Do you want us to try again or do you think this is gonna keep being a problem? Because it kinda sounds like you’ve got a _few_ issues you’ve got to work out.”

“Do I have to decide now?” Steve asked, giving Sam sad puppy eyes.

Sam sighed. “Well, I guess we can wait to decide on what direction we want to take this until after we figure out what to do about our current situation. You know, when most people say ‘my work is trying to kill me,’ they don’t mean it quite so literally.”

This drew a chuckle from Steve. “Yeah, that’s probably a _bit_ higher of a priority right now.”


	16. Chapter 16

Steve slouched into the restraints. The HYDRA goons were watching him like a hawk, expecting him to try something, expecting him to try to break out, but he sat as if in a trance. Sam kept looking between him, Natasha, and the HYDRA goons, waiting for someone to do something. Captain America and the Black Widow had to have some sort of plan between them, right? _He_ didn’t plan on getting ‘disappeared’ by HYDRA. Unfortunately Natasha seemed to be focusing most of her effort on not passing out from blood loss, and Steve was clearly shaken.

“ _Can’t_ be,” Steve kept repeating softly to himself.

“Can’t be what?” Sam nudged, trying to gently bring Steve back from wherever he’d gone inside his head.

“The Winter Soldier. He looks exactly like Bucky. He can’t be, but he _is_. I’d know his face anywhere,” Steve said slowly.

“Bucky,” Sam echoed. “Bucky, meaning Sergeant Barnes of the Howling Commandos?”

Steve nodded. “It was him. He looked right at me and he didn’t even know me.”

“How is that even possible? That was like seventy years ago.”

“Zola. Bucky’s whole unit was captured in ’43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did, it helped Bucky survive the fall. They must’ve found him…”

“None of that’s your fault, Steve,” Natasha interjected.

“Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky,” Steve added dejectedly.

The little lightbulb clicked on in Sam’s head. _Oh_. “Was it him you were referring to this morning?”

Steve gave a very slight nod, barely perceptible.

Sam shook his head. “Steve, you are going to make some therapist rich.”

Natasha gave a little chuckle which trailed off into a pained grunt.

Sam looked back over at her. Her shoulder wound was still bleeding freely. “We need to get a doctor in here. If we don’t put pressure on that wound, she’s gonna bleed out here in the truck.” Maybe it was too much to expect basic human compassion from HYDRA, but he had to try, right?

\--------------------------------

This day was shaping up as one of the weirdest Sam could ever remember experiencing. First he got back home from his morning run only to find Captain America looking like a sad, dirty stray golden retriever on his front steps. Who, along with the Black Widow, then helped him steal back his wings. After that, he got into a fight with an assassin who doesn’t officially exist who turned out to be Steve’s not-so-dead best friend and even more nebulous not-quite-ex. And now he was sitting in a cave being scrutinized by Steve’s boss, who had been officially declared dead a couple days ago, and being considered for a part in an extremely ambitious plan to keep HYDRA (who had _also_ been declared dead) from killing a few million people. Definitely weird.

\---------------------------

Steve stepped outside for a breather. Today had been a lot to take in. Natasha, Sam, Hill, and even Fury had all told him that it wasn’t his fault that HYDRA had found Bucky and… turned him into the Winter Soldier. Fury had added the very pragmatic, but not as comforting as maybe he had intended it to be, addition that, if HYDRA had unfinished business, you pretty much had to kill every last one of them or else they’d find some way of finishing it. If it hadn’t been the train, it would’ve been something else, and if Steve wanted to do something more useful than mope about it, then he could try to save his friend, or at the very least, atone for leaving him, by helping to destroy HYDRA now.

He wanted to do more than atone. Steve wanted to reach inside the Winter Soldier and find Bucky, wherever he might be in there, and pull him back up. To reach him like he hadn’t been able to on that damned train. Because Bucky had to still be in there somewhere. He had to be, so that Steve could apologize to him for leaving him in the mountains, for letting him fall, for that disastrous conversation in his tent. For not telling him sooner. For every fight he had dragged him less than willingly into. Bucky had always had his back, no matter what it had cost him. And like hell if Steve was going to just let him fall away again.

Steve felt eyes on him. He turned, finding Sam standing a few steps behind him.

“You were thinking about him, weren’t you?” Sam asked.

“How’d you know?” Steve responded.

“You had this look on your face, part wistful and part penitent. You wanna talk?”

“About Bucky?”

“Yeah. About him,” Sam said. “You’re not focused around him. He wants to kill you and you’re pining worse than a Christmas tree farm. I know I said we’d have to discuss your hangup before we decide what to do about us, but that was said under the assumption that the dead actually stayed dead (which apparently isn’t such a hard and fast rule in your world, which is, honestly, kinda freaky) and that eventually you’d be able to move on. I also know I said we’d wait until HYDRA wasn’t trying to kill you before discussing it, but seeing as he’s one of the people trying to kill you, I think this is as good a time as any. You’re carrying a torch for him, but all he wants to do right now is burn you down. And you’re practically handing him the means to do it. This seems like more than just guilt for not catching him when he fell. What aren’t you saying?”

“I told him. A couple nights before he fell, I told him how I felt about him.”

“And he didn’t feel the same?”

“No, worse. He _did_. He was angry that I hadn’t told him how I felt about him before I’d met Peggy. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Peggy, and we were good together, but I loved him too. I don’t even remember now why I’d told him right then, I hadn’t planned to. Our last real conversation before he fell was an argument all because I’d been too _shy_ to tell him how I felt when I should’ve, when we could’ve actually done something about it.”

“Ok, lemme stop you there,” Sam sighed. “You know how I said you’re gonna make a therapist rich? I take it back, you’re gonna make a whole _pack_ of therapists _very_ rich. _After_ we get through this.”

“I’m sorry to do this to you, Sam. You’re definitely right, I’ve got some issues to work out. At least half of them revolve around Bucky right now, and I don’t know what to do about that.”

“You know he’s gonna be there, right?”

“I know.”

“I don’t know how much of him is left in there. Whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don’t think he’s the kind you save. He’s the kind you stop. Could you do that?” Sam asked pointedly. “He doesn’t know you.”

Steve looked at Sam, then turned to walk away. “He will. Gear up, it’s time,” he said over his shoulder.


	17. Chapter 17

‘He’s the kind you stop. Could you do that?’ Sam’s words flashed into Steve’s head as he stared down Bucky on the catwalks in the belly of the third helicarrier. Bucky—he would _not_ think of him as the Winter Soldier, that was the façade HYDRA built around him, not who he really was—stood between him and the server tower. Sam’s Falcon exo-suit had been disabled, so it was just him and Bucky, no backup. For either of them.

“People are gonna die, Buck. I can’t let that happen,” Steve pleaded, staring into Bucky’s eyes, looking for recognition, if not of him, then of the iconic suit. (If he only remembers the suit, that’s still better than nothing, Steve thought.) For _any_ response at all beyond cold detachment. “Please don’t make me do this.”

Still nothing from Bucky. ‘He’s the kind you stop. Could you do that?’ Steve gritted his teeth and flung his shield, forcing Bucky into motion. 

Bucky blocked the shield, sending it ricocheting back at Steve and unholstering a gun in one fluid movement. Steve grabbed the shield, raising it again, but not fast enough to prevent one of the bullets from grazing his side. Ignoring the pain, he charged, pushing Bucky back and knocking the gun from his grip. Bucky pulled a knife and continued his assault. Steve disarmed him again and threw him bodily aside and punched in the code to lower the server tower so he could insert the targeting blade. Bucky got back to his feet, and if looks could kill… Please don’t make me do this; I don’t _want_ to hurt you. Bucky charged again, a growl of pure rage welling up from deep within him. He tackled Steve, knocking him off the catwalk and causing him to drop the server blade. Bucky dropped down after Steve and was on him again. 

This close, he has to be able to smell me, Steve thought as they grappled. He _has_ to recognize me. So much of memory is associated with smell. He _has_ to remember. Instead, Bucky pulled a second knife and plunged it into Steve’s shoulder. Steve did the only thing he could and headbutted Bucky until he fell back, briefly stunned. Steve dislodged the knife as Bucky scooped up the server blade. Steve immediately leapt on him, trying to get the blade back.

“Drop it!” He ordered, pulling Bucky’s right arm back at an unnatural angle. Knowing that he couldn’t put the command into his voice that an alpha could, knowing that an alpha like Bucky wouldn’t be _compelled_ to comply with his order, but hoping that Bucky might recognize him and listen because it was _him_.

No such luck. Bucky continued to struggle until his shoulder popped audibly out of socket. He howled in pain and anger but still didn’t drop the server blade. Steve flinched at the sound. Please, please stop fighting me. I don’t want to keep hurting you. Steve managed to wrestle him into a choke hold, maintaining his grip until Bucky went limp and finally dropped the blade. Steve picked it up and got back to his feet, meaning to climb back up to the tower.

Instead, Bucky had come to much quicker than Steve had expected. Steve was halfway back up the housing of the server hub when he heard another gunshot and felt the bullet pass through his leg. He gritted his teeth and climbed back up to the server tower. Maria Hill’s voice in his earpiece, “One minute.” The helicarriers were nearly at satellite uplink altitude. Come on Steve, complete your mission before Bucky completes his. Do your job, save everyone, then you can try to save him. 

“Thirty seconds, Cap!” Hill pressed.

“Stand by,” Steve said, pulling the server blade out of the wrist of his glove and lining it up.

Another gunshot, this one hitting much closer to its mark. It was a through and through and Steve healed quickly, but a bullet to the gut was serious damage, even for him. The pain caused him to stumble and drop to his knees.

Finish your mission.

Steve hauled himself back up and clicked the server blade into place. “Charlie lock,” he announced.

“Ok Cap, get out of there,” Hill replied.

“Fire now!” Steve argued.

“But Steve—” Hill counter-argued.

“Do it! Do it now!” Steve insisted.

Hill said nothing, but the helicarriers began firing on each other. Steve knew she had acceded to him, even if she disagreed with his decision to begin the assault while he was still onboard the helicarrier. 

Steve leaned back against the server hub, resting for a moment among the chaos when he heard Bucky scream. Immediately alert, he looked up just in time to see a catwalk girder knock Bucky down. Falling again. Steve steeled himself against the pain. This time, _this_ time, he could save him. Bucky fell, and he would leap after him.

Steve leapt. Off the catwalk to the inverted glass bowl of the bottom of the helicarrier. Bucky struggled, unable to gain any purchase against the smooth glass, pinned down by the girder and hampered by his dislocated shoulder. Trapped, he watched Steve warily, confusion and fear in his eyes. The Winter Soldier did not show fear. Steve strained, aggravating his own injuries, but lifting the girder just enough to allow Bucky to scramble out from underneath it. Steve dropped the girder, panting with effort and exhaustion. He and Bucky briefly locked eyes, each staring the other down, waiting for the other to make the first move.

“You know me,” Steve said, firmly.

“No I don’t!” Bucky said, just as stubbornly.

“Bucky, you’ve known me your whole life,” Steve insisted. Bucky closed the distance between them, swinging his fist with less precision than before, but still connecting. Steve absorbed the blow. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” he continued.

“Shut up!” Bucky bellowed, shaking his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. He threw another wild punch, connecting again. 

Steve still refused to fight back. He had completed his mission, the helicarriers were going down. The only thing left for him to do was to try to save Bucky. He pulled off his helmet and flung it down. He dropped his shield, letting it fall into the river below. He tipped his head back slightly, exposing just enough neck to admit vulnerability. “I’m not gonna fight you. You’re my friend.”

“You’re my mission,” Bucky yelled, charging again, knocking Steve onto his back and battering him with a barrage of punches. “You’re my mission!” He panted between blows. Though he tried his hardest not to show it, Bucky was tiring too, worn down from the fighting and his injuries. 

“Then finish it,” Steve said. “Because I’m with you to the end of the line.”

Steve watched as Bucky pulled his fist back again, but hesitated. One eye swollen shut, the other barely focusing, Steve couldn’t be absolutely sure, but he would swear that he saw a flash of recognition in Bucky’s face. It was working.

Then Steve was falling, the helicarrier collapsing under him. He plunged into the river, sinking beneath the water. Barely conscious, it seemed a cruel irony that as he finally reached Bucky again, he was the one falling now. He lapsed into unconsciousness.

\----------

Steve came to briefly, coughing up water. He wasn’t drowning anymore. The ground was solid underneath him. He blinked against the water in his eyelashes, blurring his vision. A figure, he knew it was Bucky—he could smell him even through the stink of burning and river mud, knelt over him. Bucky knelt over him and pulled up the sleeve on his right arm, his natural arm, and guiding the weakened limb with his left hand, dragged his wrist over Steve’s neck and throat. Scent-marking him, possessive, leaving his scent on top of Steve’s. Steve passed out again, the last thing he saw was Bucky receding into the woods. 


	18. Chapter 18

“It’s hardly fair, arguing with a captive audience,” Steve grumbled to Sam from his hospital bed. He was feeling much better, good enough to argue, in fact, but per the doctors’ orders, he was not yet allowed to get up and move around.

“Yeah, well, the sooner we discuss this the better,” Sam replied.

“What’s to discuss?” Steve said, contrarily.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that the guy who tried to kill you also decided to scent-mark your _neck_? There is exactly one reason for an alpha to do that, and I _know_ you know what that is; he’s telling everyone with a nose, ‘back off, this one’s mine’,” Sam said.

“Well, maybe I want that,” Steve quibbled, blushing a little.

“Is that you, your hormones, or your head trauma talking? And what about us? I know alpha-beta-omega triads aren’t unheard of, but it’s good practice for _all_ parties involved to agree on things _before_ entering such a relationship,” Sam said. “I get it, you like the guy, but I’m a little more hesitant. We have no idea what kind of state of mind he’s in right now. We have no idea what HYDRA did to him to make him like this. The guy goes from trying to kill you to trying to claim you to disappearing into the wind in less than the time it takes to get through the Starbucks drive-through. I’m just saying, take some time to think about what you’re gonna do before you go out and do it, ok?”

\-----------------

Steve wasn’t sure what time it was, other than late. He had woken from a surprisingly deep sleep and a half-remembered dream. He lay quietly, not wanting anyone to come check on him just right now. He wanted time to himself, to think about Bucky, and about what Sam had said.

He had always loved Bucky. It had been a quiet love, unlike the brashness of the rest of him. Quiet enough that Bucky hadn’t realized it was there until too late. But it wasn’t too late anymore, was it? He didn’t want it to be. He was being given a second chance. And when Bucky had marked him, it had gone right to a deep, primal want within him. The possessiveness of the act. Steve didn’t want the submission so much, but the closeness, the intimacy. 

And it was true, he _didn’t_ know what kind of state of mind Bucky had been in. Bucky had never deliberately marked him before. Thinking back, Steve could think of a few times where Bucky had gone so far as to deliberately _avoid_ marking him, even incidentally (probably deferring to Peggy). He wanted Bucky. He knew Bucky had wanted him, but the present was less certain. Had the marking been a free choice? Why had he done it? Steve wondered, in Bucky’s head, was he still his mission? A conflation between being his target and his object of desire? He’d have to be cautious. As much as he wanted Bucky, he didn’t want there to be any uncertainty. How would Bucky feel about Sam? Would Sam be ok with Bucky joining them? Steve didn’t want to regain Bucky just to lose Sam.

Maybe he’d see if he could dig up anything on the Winter Soldier, see if he could find out what HYDRA had done to Bucky before they began their search. It was always best to know what they were up against before starting anything.


	19. Chapter 19

Almost two years later and Steve was no closer to finding Bucky than he had been when he watched him disappear into the trees after the helicarriers came down. He and Sam had looked, had used every resource they had available, but Bucky was proving _very_ good at hiding. A little morbid thought at the back of Steve’s mind said there were two perfectly good reasons why they hadn’t found him yet, given how obvious they had been about looking for him: either he didn’t _want_ Steve to find him, or else he was dead. Steve didn’t want either one of those to be true.

Or, more likely, Bucky was living a quiet life somewhere out of the public eye and Steve and Sam hadn’t found him yet because they were both pretty busy with Avengers duties. HYDRA might be gone, but there was always some threat somewhere in the world that needed taking care of. The Avengers were busy.

\-----------------------------------------

Maybe Bucky had the right idea, withdrawing from the public eye, Steve thought. There was entirely too much going on in his life right now. The fallout from Lagos, the introduction of the Sokovia Accords, and the rising tension between the Avengers, between his _friends_ , about how to proceed with the Accords. And now _this_. Steve retreated into the closest stairwell, needing somewhere he could be alone, and quickly. He didn’t want to break down in front of the team, not at this juncture. He checked his phone again, rereading the messages for probably the tenth time already. Peggy was gone. She had had a long and fulfilling life, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

A few minutes later, Steve heard the stairwell door open slowly. “Steve?” came Sam’s voice from the floor above.

“Down here,” Steve replied, after a moment’s pause. 

“Bad news?” Sam asked quietly, descending the stairs and stopping next to Steve and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Steve nodded. “Peggy. She’s gone. Funeral’s in London in two days.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “Would you like me to be there or do you need to do this alone?”

“I don’t think I could handle it alone. I need you to be there with me, please.”

“Of course.”

\----------------------------------

After the funeral, Steve was in a fragile state of mind. Peggy was gone, Bucky was still missing, and with that, every link to his past was gone, abruptly severed. He had lived two lives; one was over, and the other was falling apart around him. He had Sam, but what were two people against the world? He sought out Sharon, Peggy’s grand-niece, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, now working for the CIA, to ask her how she had adjusted to life after S.H.I.E.L.D. He wouldn’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t dump all of his problems on Sam; let someone else listen to him complain for a bit.

When they returned to the hotel, Sam met Steve in the lobby with a look on his face that said there was trouble. Returning to their room (and bringing Sharon with them), Sam just pointed at the TV, letting the news report explain everything.

Barely half an hour ago a bomb had ripped through the UN building in Vienna where the Sokovia Accords had been signed into law. A blurry security video from the night before seemed to implicate the Winter Soldier. Steve didn’t want to believe that Bucky could have done that, everything on his front had been utterly silent for the past two years, but the figure in the video certainly did look like him. Sharon was on the phone with her boss; the Joint Terrorism Task Force was coordinating the investigation and she was to get to Vienna, A.S.A.P. And, well, if Steve and Sam ended up in Vienna, too…

\-----------------------

Natasha’s voice though the phone was clear and authoritative. “Stay home. You’ll only make this worse for all of us. Please.”

“Are you saying you’ll arrest me?” Steve asked.

“No. But someone will, if you interfere. That’s how this works now,” Natasha explained.

“If he’s this far gone, Nat,” Steve continued, “I should be the one to bring him in.”

“Why?” Natasha demanded.

“Because I’m the one least likely to die trying. They know he’s an alpha, right? They can’t just go in guns blazing and expect him to roll over and give himself up. They invade his home, his personal space, his _territory_ , and he’s gonna fight back. He might listen to me,” Steve said, ending the call as soon as he finished speaking. He put the phone back into his pocket and returned to the café where Sam was waiting for Sharon to return with whatever intel she could sneak away. 

“She tell you to stay out of it?” Sam asked. Steve nodded. “I just wanna make sure we consider all of our options. The people who shoot at you usually wind up shooting at me, too.”

Sharon returned to the café and casually slid a folder over to Steve. No turning back, now.

\----------------------------------

Steve and Sam made it to the building in question about five minutes ahead of the German Special Forces team, giving Sam time to establish himself on the roof and for Steve to enter the apartment unnoticed. He scanned the single room. No one was home at the moment, but it smelled like Bucky. This was _Bucky’s_ apartment, not a base of operations for the Winter Soldier. It was shabby but homey. Steve walked slowly further into the room, noticing a thin book, maybe a notebook or journal, seemingly out of place on top of the refrigerator. He picked it up, gently, cautiously. He knew he needed to be here, but he felt also like he was intruding. He opened the journal, flipping through the pages as it parted to reveal a flier for the Smithsonian’s Captain America exhibition. So Bucky had been doing some research, had he?

Steve was brought out of his reverie by a sudden sharp scent of fear (and annoyance?) and the feeling of eyes on him. He turned, finding Bucky standing at the front of the room. There was _life_ in his eyes. This was Bucky, not the Winter Soldier, Steve was sure of that. He just had to convince everyone else of that.


	20. Chapter 20

Steve watched silently. Bucky, still unconscious, had been carefully propped up next to the hydraulic press where Steve and Sam had managed to immobilize his metal arm. Sam had insisted on the press, insisted on caution. Steve agreed with him on some level, but mostly he just wanted Bucky back. Bucky was his last remaining connection to his first life. His life as an Avenger was crashing down around him, so Steve grasped at that thread of old familiarity. He hoped Bucky would remember him when he came to, but he really didn’t know. He wanted to sit with him until he woke up, but Sam had just shook his head and put a hand lightly on Steve’s arm, holding him back.

\------------

Steve had stepped out of the room to call Clint, to round everyone up for their new mission to Siberia. Sam seized the opportunity. He strode up to where Bucky was still sitting, and stood over him, arms crossed.

“Why’d you do it?” Sam asked. “Why’d you mark him?

“What?” Bucky asked. “You’re gonna have to give me a little more detail than that. If you hadn’t noticed, my brain’s not entirely my own. Why did I mark who? When?”

“Steve. Back in Washington. After you pulled him out of the river (I assume it was after the river, or else it would have been washed off) you scent-marked him. On his neck, right over his own scent glands. Why’d you do it?”

Bucky looked confused. “I did what?” he asked.

“You scent-marked Steve’s neck,” Sam repeated slowly.

Bucky’s face changed from confusion to dismay. “I marked his _neck_?” Bucky said, more of a statement than a question.

“Mm-hmm,” Sam nodded.

“But the only reason to do that would be to… I didn’t do _that_ , did I?” Bucky recoiled.

“No, but some part of you seemingly wanted to.”

“Not like that, _no_. I mean, yeah, I wanted him. I loved him. But he was with Peggy then, and I wasn’t getting between them, they were good for each other. He’s probably got someone new now, and even if not, why would he want me anymore? I’m kinda fucked up.”

“You used the past tense there, do you not feel the same way anymore? Because if you don’t, you should probably tell Steve sooner rather than later. He’s still a bit in love with you and if you’re not, then he deserves to know so he can move on properly,” Sam warned.

“I don’t really know,” Bucky said, looking down at his hands. “I think I do, but I don’t know if I _should_ want that anymore. He has to know I’m not who I used to be. Why would he still be in love with me? He deserves better than what I’ve become.”

“Why do we do anything?” Sam shrugged.

“Last time he told me he loved me, we got into a fight over it and then I fell off a train. I don’t know if he’ll do that again,” Bucky said dejectedly.

“Well, fine, if you wanna argue with me, maybe _you_ ’d better tell _him_. That way you’ll know if you’re ready or not. And if you decide that you don’t want to get together (back together?) but still can’t tell him, then let me know,” Sam added.

“Why would I need to tell you? Are you his shrink or something? Need to make sure he doesn’t crash another plane over me?”

“Nooooo. I am most certainty _not_ his shrink. We’re—” Sam cut himself off, not sure if it would be a smart idea to tell Bucky about his and Steve’s relationship at this juncture. “I’m not a _shrink_ , I volunteered at the VA for about a year as a counselor, that’s it. I have never been nor will I ever be a licensed therapist. And you couldn’t even have known about my time at the VA. Why does everyone think I’m his therapist?”

“You’ve got this, I dunno, ‘thing’ between you and him and the only things I can think of that would cause that would be either you’re his shrink, or you slept together. And I ruled the second one out because, unless that doctor guy messed with my nose, too, you smell like a beta,” Bucky said, his forehead wrinkling with confusion.

“Nah, your nose is fine, I am a beta.” Screw it, Sam thought. Maybe I _should_ tell him. He’s gonna find out eventually, even if it’s just from how Steve acts around me.

“So if you’re not his shrink, and you didn’t sleep with him, then what am I missing? I’m usually pretty good at reading people.”

“I never said I didn’t sleep with him,” Sam teased.

Bucky’s face went from mild confusion, to surprise, to, finally, a big grin. “Stevie lost it to a beta, huh? Of course he would. Always had to buck tradition.” He paused, thinking for a moment. “But if you’re already together, wouldn’t I just be a third wheel?”

“Look, there are a _lot_ of things we’ll have to talk about. Maybe not right now, but eventually. If we all get out of this alive and well, Steve’s gonna start pining for real whether he means to or not, which won’t be good for any of us. And while I can’t say for certain a triad is _definitely_ going to work out, but I’m willing to discuss things and maybe do a sort of a trial-run. You willing to talk to Steve about your past and what that means for all of our present once we get out of this?”

“Yeah, I can talk to him,” Bucky nodded slowly.

“Good. Now let’s focus on the job at hand.”


	21. Chapter 21

Steve had known that nothing good could possibly be waiting for them in Siberia. He and Bucky had boarded the quinjet full well knowing that they would be in for the fight of their lives. He hadn’t expected it to be against Tony Stark, however; he thought they had managed to leave him in Leipzig. Everything was going to hell in a handbasket.

\--------

Bucky stumbled, dropping to his knees, staring unseeingly at the space his left arm ought to have been occupying. Tony pushed himself back off the wall and smashed an armored fist into Bucky’s jaw, knocking him down and out. Steve picked himself up off the ground, lifted his shield, and charged. Tony was trying to _kill_ Bucky. Not subdue him to take him into custody, but actually fighting to kill. Bucky had barely even defended himself until Tony had taken away his escape route, only then fighting like a cornered animal. Steve blocked the repulsor blast, knocking Tony back against the wall and pummeling the armor. Disarming Tony would be nearly impossible to do, but he had to do it. Had to protect Bucky.

The Iron Man armor whirred suddenly back to life, beating Steve back. A repulsor blast to the stomach knocked Steve to his hands and knees, coughing up blood. “Stay down. Final warning,” Tony said, pointing his palm repulsor at Steve.

Steve struggled to his feet. “I could do this all day,” he gasped.

“Why?” Tony asked.

“He’s my friend,” Steve said adamantly.

“He killed my mom,” Tony spat back.

“It wasn’t him. HYDRA had control of his mind.”

“I don’t care. She didn’t deserve that!”

“I know she didn’t.”

“Then why are you defending him? What are you getting out of this? Is he fucking you? Is that it? Is that how you knew where to find him? You and Wilson and Barnes in some freakish three-way in a little domestic murder-hovel because you knew you couldn’t bring a feral alpha like him back into civilized company?” Tony taunted.

“Tony. Think before you speak. Please,” Steve said, warning in his voice.

The repulsor whined and brightened, ready to fire again. Steve held his ground.

Bucky rolled over, stretching out his arm until he could reach Tony’s ankle, grabbing at it, trying to give Steve a chance to get out of the way, anything. Tony lashed out, kicking him hard in the face.

Steve saw red. He tackled Tony, knocking him down and began beating at the facemask, finally wrenching it off. He lifted the shield in a moment of pure rage, holding it like a guillotine blade; Tony raised his hand, preparing to block the blow, but Steve brought it down on the arc reactor, smashing it. He closed his eyes, panting, slowly coming back to himself. He was angry enough to want to kill Tony, but he didn’t really and truly want him dead. Tony had to live and learn. Steve picked up the shield, dragged himself back to his feet, and took Bucky’s hand, helping him up.

“You don’t deserve that shield,” Tony said, always having to get the last word in. “My father made that shield!”

Steve sighed and dropped the shield. Bucky was alive, that was what mattered. Let Tony have the shield.

\-----------------------------------------

Bucky had his right arm weakly around Steve’s shoulders, Steve supporting him as best he could. One step at a time. Just get back to the quinjet. Get back to the quinjet, figure out where you’re going from there. Bucky stumbled, falling to his knees in the snow.

“Still with me, Buck?” Steve asked anxiously.

“’m not dead yet. Gimme a moment, though,” Bucky murmured.

“Just hang on,” Steve replied. “We’re almost back to the quinjet.”

“And where’re we going from here?” Bucky asked, letting Steve help him back to his feet. “Neither of us are in any shape for another fight. Who’d take us in?”

“I don’t know. We’ll find someone. We’ll find someone to take us in. All of us. You, me, Sam, Wanda, Clint, Scott, all of us,” Steve said, trying to convince himself.

They could see the quinjet, just visible around the corner of the building. It was right there, tantalizingly close. Just a little bit further.

Rounding the corner, Steve pulled up short. He felt Bucky’s sharp intake of breath. Descending from a small, sleek, and very fast-looking aircraft (even if they got to the quinjet, Steve wasn’t sure they’d be able to outrun him) was T’Challa, the Black Panther. His head was bare, but he was still wearing the rest of the Black Panther’s impenetrable vibranium-weave armor. Great. This was just what they needed. Another fight. Steve placed himself between Bucky and T’Challa.

“He didn’t do it. He didn’t set that bomb. You can’t… you can’t take him,” Steve said, making himself as large as he could, trying to ignore the pain that was almost more than he could bear. He knew he couldn’t fight T’Challa, but he had to. He had to protect Bucky.

“You may relax, Captain. My apologies,” T’Challa said, surprising both Steve and Bucky. “I am no longer here for your friend.”

“What?” Steve said softly, not believing his ears. Barely two days ago, this same man had told him that nothing could stand between him and his vow to kill Bucky, and now he had followed them to Siberia to… apologize? Steve wasn’t sure what was happening.

“I heard what Zemo said to you. I have secured him in my jet and will be taking him into custody. I was wrong about your friend and wish to offer you my assistance, if you will accept it.”

“What?” Steve said again. This wasn’t real. He was clearly hallucinating. He was probably lying in the snow, slowly freezing to death.

“You are both injured and need somewhere safe to go. We may stand on opposite sides of the Sokovia Accords, but I believe I understand why you chose the side you did. I am offering a brief respite in your fight. If you accept, I will enter the coordinates into your quinjet to the best hospital in Wakanda. I will inform them of your arrival, and they will take care of you. I was wrong about your friend. I wish to right that wrong.”

“Uh,” Steve said. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

“I take it back, Stevie, I think I _am_ dead,” Bucky added. “Because this can’t be real, can it?”

“I assure you, this is very real,” T’Challa said, attempting to keep a growing note of impatience out of his voice. “You are both alive, although you are both injured and in need of medical assistance, which I am offering. It is also very cold, and I would very much like to take my prisoner back to Berlin, where he may be dealt with by the proper authorities. Shall we?” He gestured towards the quinjet.

“Of course, Your Highness. We accept your offer, gratefully,” Steve said, showing his throat to underscore his agreement. “I’m sorry. It’s been a _long_ day. Oh, um, if I may, would you be able to take Tony back with you? He’s back there in the base of the rocket launch silo… thing. I kind of broke his suit and he might be a stubborn asshole, but he doesn’t deserve to freeze to death in Siberia. Plus, Pepper would kill me if she found out I just left him here.”

“I believe I could manage that,” T’Challa said, with the hint of a laugh.

\-------------------------------

“I’m sorry, but what the fuck just happened?” Bucky asked as soon as the quinjet was in the air and autopilot had engaged.

“Hey, I’m not questioning it,” Steve said, lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender as he left the cockpit and settled down next to Bucky.

“I’ve got questions,” Bucky said. “Like why did Tony think we were denning up together? As far as I could gather, it’s absolutely not public that you had a thing for me.”

“Tony was trying to hurt me in any way he could. He seems to have gotten it into his head that I’m a paragon of sexual virtue and have never had a dirty thought in my life,” Steve explained.

Bucky snorted. “Has he _met_ you? How does he not know that you and Sam are shacked up?”

“How do you know about Sam?”

“One, it’s kind of obvious. Two, he told me.”

“You never lost that ability, did you? You always could find a way to get anyone to tell you anything. So, uh, do you want to talk about you and me and Sam and me now or later?”

Bucky shifted, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” Steve said. “Later.”

“So, uh, what do you know about Wakanda?” Bucky asked, changing the subject. “About the only thing I can remember from geography class was where they were on the map, and that they’d never been colonized.”

“Not a whole lot more than that, honestly,” Steve replied, glad to find a different topic of conversation. “I know that’s where vibranium comes from and that they only broke their strict isolationist policy after Ultron and Sokovia.”

“Nothing else? I’d heard rumors that they’ve got the best neurotechnology in the world. When I first woke up in Washington, I can recall a conversation between Pierce and one of my Soviet handlers about how to wipe me. One of the parts for the latest version of the Chair had been broken in transit, and the broken part had been stolen from Wakanda in the 1970’s. I think they went after that part because whatever they’d been doing before wasn’t working as well as it used to. They weren’t sure they could replace that part without going back to Wakanda because no one else came close to making such precise instrumentation, and if they tried to build a replacement themselves and got it wrong, then I might end up brain-dead and completely useless to them. So, uh, I was kinda hoping you’d know something about that, and if maybe they could get this shit out of my head.”

“I wish I could say yes, but I don’t know. It sounds like you know more about the country than I do. You could ask when we get there.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

\--------------------------

Steve woke suddenly to the voice of the quinjet autopilot. “Approaching destination, ETA approximately thirty minutes. Please return to pilot’s chair.” Steve was pretty sure the quinjet could land itself, but if it wanted him in the pilot’s chair, then that’s where he’d go. Bucky was still asleep, his head resting on Steve’s shoulder. Steve took a moment to appreciate it before gently nudging Bucky awake.

“Ugh. Lemme have a few more minutes,” Bucky mumbled, not opening his eyes.

“Sorry, Buck. I’d love to stay, but we’re almost there. I gotta get back into the cockpit and you gotta buckle in for landing.”

“Almost where?” Bucky yawned, opening his eyes and lifting his head.

“Wakanda, remember?”

“That was real? I thought I musta dreamed it. Sounded too good to be true.”

“I know, it doesn’t feel real, but it was. Is. Come up to the cockpit with me, you can watch our arrival. That way you can be sure we’re not in Siberia anymore.”


	22. Chapter 22

Steve sat in the guest suite, waiting. Sam was back home at the Avengers compound. They both knew that if they were serious about bringing Bucky in (and if Bucky agreed), then they’d have to all have a nice sit-down talk, but this wasn’t the time for that. This was Steve finally getting his oldest friend back. Not his _lover_ , erstwhile, putative, or any other adjectives you could throw at them, but his _friend_. 

Steve hadn’t even unpacked more than the clothes he’d changed into after arriving from the airport, it all felt so unreal. Bucky was finally coming out of cryo for the final time. T’Challa had called him to tell him that they had finished removing the command codes from Bucky’s brain, a long and complicated process, and after a few more, minor, tests he would finally be ready to be discharged from the hospital. Steve had booked the first flight available, cost be damned. And now he was here, waiting for his phone to ring, to let him know it was time. Bucky was coming home. Steve’s knee bounced restlessly as he stared as his phone, lying on the bed next to him. Every so often, he clicked the button to wake it up and make sure he had a signal. He always did, full strength. The call would come, he knew it would.

\-----------------------

Steve sat in the hospital waiting room. Waiting, again. He ducked his head and closed his eyes, reminding himself to breathe.

A tap on his shoulder made Steve jolt upright. How long had it been? There was Bucky, standing in front of him, gloriously real. Steve practically bolted up out of his seat to envelop Bucky in a bear hug.

“I missed you,” Steve said into Bucky’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I can tell,” Bucky said with a laugh, returning the hug. “And while I’m really grateful for everything they’ve done for me here, I am done with hospitals for a long time. So, if you can manage to detach yourself from me, I’d like to go get a good meal and sleep in a real bed tonight.”

“Of course,” Steve said, pulling back and adding, “Oh, hey, new arm.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, lifting the arm away from his side and turning it to give Steve a look-over. “It’s nice. It’s not as strong as the one HYDRA gave me, but I’m good with that. It’s more like a normal prosthetic and less like a weapon now. And look,” Bucky pointed as his shoulder, “no red star. I’m a blank slate again. Kinda. I mean, I’m not really, but I’m not their symbol anymore. I get to decide who and what I am now.”


	23. Chapter 23

Bucky had been living at the Avengers compound for a couple months now. Long enough to begin to fall into a routine, but not long enough to feel fully at home yet. There was still a lingering tension in the air, not least due to his and Steve’s and Sam’s relationship (a _triad_? Did those really happen?). Everyone was ostensibly friends again, but he knew that he was still an outsider and that he was almost certainly complicating things. Sam shrugged and said that people would think whatever they wanted, sometimes you just had to ignore them. Steve swore up and down that he wasn’t a problem, but that was Steve for you.

Bucky knew that even if he wasn’t a problem now, he probably would be eventually. He hadn’t gone into rut at all during his two years in hiding, but that was probably a biological safety mechanism. If his body was in a constant state of stress, then of course it wouldn’t consider reproduction a priority. He didn’t _think_ that he had during his time as the Winter Soldier, either. HYDRA had probably suppressed it—couldn’t have their pet assassin lose his head over pheromones because they had repressed everything about him except instinct, muscle memory, and a willingness to obey. But what if it was permanent? He said he’d wait for Steve, but he wasn’t sure what would happen when the time actually came. He knew that prolonged contact with an omega in heat, especially one you had feelings for already, could push an alpha into rut, but what if it didn’t happen to him? Steve wouldn’t have to go without, but how would he feel if Bucky didn’t— _couldn’t_ —respond to his heat like an alpha was supposed to? 

And if his nose was to be believed, Steve was just entering into the early stages of pre-heat, the beginning of the hormone ramp intensifying his natural scent. A day, two days at most, and his scent glands would begin releasing the pheromones that let anyone nearby know that there was an omega going into heat. Bucky thought that he ought to be feeling something by now. It was _Steve_. He wanted Steve and he knew Steve wanted him back, even if, according to Sam, Steve (still) wasn’t particularly interested in sex outside of his heats.

Bucky wiggled further back into the couch cushions and splayed out his legs, lightly palming his dick through his jeans. He and Sam had already had a few awkward-but-ultimately-satisfying times together, so at least he knew that getting it up wouldn’t be a problem. But if he didn’t go into rut, then he wouldn’t be able to knot and he wanted that experience with Steve. Steve and Sam had already formed their own bond, and he was feeling kind of left out. He knew well enough that alphas could bond with knotting alone, though such a bond was short-term and rarely lasted until the next rut. But what about just biting? Would that be enough? _Could_ alphas bond outside of rut? (He didn’t _think_ he and Sam had yet, but then again, he wasn’t sure he remembered what bonding was supposed to feel like anymore, nor had he ever slept with a beta before.) And what about trying to bond two people at the same time? No one talked about triads when he was younger, _that_ was for sure. Maybe he’d have to ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. to see what she could find. And hope that the AI wouldn’t judge.

Not for the first time, Bucky found himself grumbling about biology.

\---------------

Bucky woke with his arms around Sam, Steve’s arms around them both, and the smell of Steve’s rising heat in his nose. He groaned quietly. Nothing. He thought he ought to be feeling something by now, but no.

“Mmh, ‘morning,” Sam yawned. He rolled over onto his other side to face Bucky and Steve and inhaled, long and slow, smiling at Bucky and Steve. “Everyone ready for this?”

“Good morning to you, too,” Steve said with a sleepy grin. “I’m _very_ ready.”

“I’m not quite as sure as you two,” Bucky replied, pulling a face. He raised one eyebrow and asked “Take a sniff. What do you not smell?”

“What do you mean, what do I _not_ smell?” Steve asked. “You can’t ask me to identify an absence of a smell, there are a lot of things I don’t smell right now.”

“Ok, here’s a hint,” Bucky said, wiggling onto his back. He placed his hand on the back of Steve’s head and gently pressed Steve’s face into the crook of his neck.

“Oh,” came Steve’s muffled reply.

Bucky let him back up. “You get it now? Why it might not be such a good morning?”

“I’m not in full heat yet,” Steve replied, sitting up and climbing out of bed. “We’ve got time. And even if your rut doesn’t happen this time, I still want us to do this. Now, I’m gonna go shower now and get ready, ok? You and Sam talk things over while I’m in there, maybe?”

Sam sat up and stretched. Bucky remained lying down. He pulled the sheet up to his chin and frowned. 

“Oh, come on,” Sam said, tugging at the sheet. “Don’t be like this. How long have you waited?”

“Long enough to know that Steve’s gonna be really disappointed, even if he won’t show it, if it doesn’t happen,” Bucky griped.

“I think he’d be more disappointed if you threw in the towel without even trying. It’s more likely to happen if you get up here and give it an _attempt_ when he gets back,” Sam said, reaching down to the cabinet in the bedside table on his side and pulling out Steve’s bag of toys. “Hell, you’re starting to disappoint me, and I don’t even _want_ your knot; that would take a lot more preparation than I am prepared to do.”

“You wanted my dick just fine a week ago,” Bucky said, rising both to Sam’s bait and into a sitting position.

“I suppose I did,” Sam shrugged, fighting to keep a grin off his face. “You know I’ve got a pretty low bar when it comes to you, and you’re still not clearing it.”

“What are you saying?” Bucky said, climbing out of bed and stripping out of his pajamas. He stood with his feet a little apart and his hands on his hips.

“Mmm,” Sam laughed, fishing around in the bag for the right accessories. “I’m _saying_ that I might need a little convincing. Steve, too. You wanna whine about how you and Steve didn’t sync up to the exact _second_ , well, I can’t stop you. _I’ll_ still be getting some, still be making Steve happy. But if you wanna stick around and try, well, I think that’d make us _all_ a lot happier.”

\---------

Steve returned from his shower, hair damp and mussed, a towel around his waist. He found Sam sitting on the bed, still in his pajamas, brandishing a dildo (already attached to its harness) at Bucky, who was fully naked (and fully hard) with his arms crossed belligerently across his chest.

“Uh, wow, what did I miss?” Steve asked, an awkward smile spreading across his face.

“Bucky still thinks there’s something wrong with him and that you’re gonna be disappointed,” Sam explained.

“I don’t see anything wrong with you, Buck,” Steve said, openly leering at him. He tugged on the end of his towel, untucking it and letting it fall to the floor. 

Steve crossed to where Bucky stood, wrapping his arms around him from behind, necks touching. He held him like that for a moment before giving him a lingering kiss on the cheek, releasing him, and climbing onto the bed to meet Sam. Steve took the harness from Sam and buckled it on while Sam quickly undressed. Bucky uncrossed his arms, raising one hand to touch his neck where Steve’s scent gland had brushed against his.

“Look, if all you’re gonna do is watch, you might as well pull up a chair and get comfortable,” Sam suggested facetiously to Bucky.

“Maybe I will,” Bucky jibed back. He left the bedroom.

“You think we should wait for him to get back?” Steve asked.

“If it takes him longer to find a chair than it does for me to get prepped, then I think we both deserve to start without him,” Sam answered.

\-------

Bucky returned with one of the recliners from the living room. He set it in the corner facing the bed, and sat down, putting his feet up. Sam and Steve both stared at him.

“What? You said to get comfortable?” Bucky shrugged.

Steve opened his mouth to comment but Sam shook his head. “If he wants to be contrary, let him. We can do this without him if that’s what he wants. And I know you won’t say anything, but I will. I know you’re more than ready to get this show on the road.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Steve said, leaning in to kiss Sam, giving Bucky a hopeful, if goading, side-eye. “Hand me my bag, please. If he’s only going to watch, then I’ve got one more thing I need to get.”

“With pleasure,” Sam replied, also giving Bucky a _look_.

\--------------

Bucky had to admit that maybe he was starting to feel a little something, watching Steve and Sam. The further along, the more worked up Steve got, the stronger his scent got. Steve’s scent and Sam’s scent (Steve’s was a lot stronger than Sam’s today, but he could still pick both of them out) and the sweat they were working up, it was a good smell. (And not to mention the good sounds Sam and Steve were making.) Bucky’s right hand found its way to his lap. He watched.

When Sam gasped out Steve’s name with Steve’s face at his neck, Bucky decided enough was enough. He shoved the recliner’s footrest down with a clunk and stalked over to the bed. He touched his hand lightly to Steve’s back. Steve slowly looked up at him.

“Joining us?” Steve asked.

Bucky nodded. “Do you two need a moment?”

Sam caught his breath again. “Yeah; if you’re joining too, I’m gonna need to find a more comfortable position where I’m not getting squashed by both of you.”

Steve and Sam resettled themselves. Steve removed the harness and all its accessories. Bucky climbed up onto the bed, knelt behind Steve, and placed his hands on his hips. He stroked his hands down Steve’s thighs, leaning into him, pressing his chest against Steve’s back. “Come on Sam,” Bucky said, gesturing him closer. “Steve sandwich time.” 

Sam gave an amused frown and moved in. Steve wrapped his arms around Sam, closed his eyes with a sigh, and actually relaxed a little. He lay his cheek against Sam’s shoulder

“You ready, Stevie?” Bucky murmured into Steve’s ear, his hands sliding up Steve’s arms now, wrists brushing over Steve’s skin, leaving his scent on him. “You want this?”

“I’ve wanted this for a long time,” Steve replied, voice barely louder than a whisper. “And now? With both of you? More than I could have ever hoped for. Even if your rut doesn’t happen, I still want this. I still want you.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Bucky admitted, “but it’s more likely to happen if I make an honest attempt than if I just sit back and watch.” (“Stealing my words,” Sam laughed.)

\------------------

Bucky woke with his arms around both Steve and Sam and a not unpleasant soreness in his neck. He wiggled his left arm out from under Steve (one advantage of a prosthetic: no pins and needles feeling when Steve fell asleep on top of it and smooshed it into the mattress) and touched the sore spot on his neck. Bite-marks; _two_ of them. He smiled. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I may or may not know the actual "rules" of alpha/beta/omega-verse, so I kinda made up my own in some places. Consent is important. Heat/rut isn't a completely overwhelming lose your mind thing, it's more like being really, really, _really_ horny. It can be successfully ignored, if one so chooses, but it ain't the most pleasant thing to do so. There are six sexes in this society, alpha-male, alpha-female, beta-male, beta-female, omega-male, and omega-female. If y'all want to know more anatomical details, ask away, and I will reply.
> 
> This fic has been in the works since April 2017, so, it has been a long time coming. 
> 
> Also, it wasn't originally going to be poly, so I hope I re-wrote those parts of it well enough.


End file.
